


Training Heels

by fawndant



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Basically this was supossed to be a short porny fic, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Bottom Lance (Voltron), But then my hand slipped and I wrote like 6 chapters of fluff, Cause that really butters my eggroll, Drag Queens, Drag queen Keith, Fuck-me-over-the-hood-of-this-lamborghini-red, Gay Keith (Voltron), Getting Together, Healthy portrayal of gender fluidity, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Lance dresses in cross, Let Keith be a soft pretty boy 2K18, M/M, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Promise, Slow Burn, There is porn though, Top Keith (Voltron), drag queen Lance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-03-04 10:19:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13362558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fawndant/pseuds/fawndant
Summary: Lance finds Keith a new job.The only problem is that it involves some real shitty, glittery shoes.In other words, this was supposed to be like two chapters long MAX but then I got drunk and thought of all the ways I could wreck em' and five chapters of fluff happened instead.





	1. My Dumb Ass.

The worst thing about it was that I had started scheduling my visits to the little shop just to see him.

Her?

Lance. The cashier at Altea’s Coffee and Doughnuts.

They had a male physique (and a good one at that), but they only wore women’s clothing, and on some days, even makeup. They always had painted nails that matched their outfits as well, which were almost always blue, something I had noticed not too long after I began coming in for coffee more and more often…

Apparently too often.

“You know, if you want my number, you’re not going to get it by staring into my brains there, pretty boy,” they said.

It took a second for the words to register when I hadn’t even put in my order yet.

I opened and closed by mouth a few times, flailing for something to say as they expertly wrote my name down without even asking for it.

“You… uh, you know my name?” I asked.

Lance gave me a knowing look, “You come in here at least three times each week, if not more, always taking an appreciative stare at my nails, _Keith_. What kind of cashier would I be if I didn’t know the name of their admirer?” they said, teasingly wiggling their bedazzled hand in front of their nose with a “gotcha” kind of grin.

I stood up a little straighter, trying to regain some of my composure.

“Sorry, it’s just, they always match,” I told them, crossing my arms and gesturing towards their outfit. “I mean, I just figured it must take some effort to just, uh… do that. Every day.”

Lance blinked in surprise, then cleared their throat.

“Huh… that’s different,” they said, suddenly hushed.

I must have let a puzzled look slip easier than I thought I had because Lance was suddenly scrambling for an explanation.

“Sorry, it’s just that usually when I catch guys staring it’s because they’re not used to seeing another dude all dolled up,” he said, “It’s a spectacle for them is all. So… I didn’t mean to call you out if you um… if you actually do like them, uh. Wow. Don’t I look like a dick now,” they mumbled off at the end.

I shook my head, probably a bit faster than I meant to. “No, I can see why I maybe gave you that idea,” I told them. “People tell me I have a face that’s just really hard to read so…”

The woman behind me in line coughed, anxious to place her order and be on her way to work.

Lance finished writing on the cup and quickly took my money before handing over my change and giving me a short wave as the lady pushed herself violently forward in line. Still thoroughly stunned, I made my way to my usual waiting spot by the window.

It occurred to me that I hadn’t even given them my order.

Literally none of that conversation had been about coffee.

I tried to keep myself as interested in my phone as possible, because every time I looked up my eyes would somehow always find their way to Lance.

Only to find Lance already looking at me.

Then the cashier would do this indescribable thing where they would blush, look away, and bite at their upper lip. It was entirely too distracting so I found myself looking back at them way more often than I should have.

Around fifteen minutes later (longer than I’d ever waited before) I looked up again only to find Lance approaching my high table in the corner with two cups of coffee and a grin.

“Sorry about the wait, I wanted to catch you on my break,” they said, shamelessly sitting the two coffees down and climbing into the other seat. It took me a second to find my voice, “Oh. That’s okay,” I told them as they took a sip of their lighter coffee mix, froth lining their upper lip when they pulled away and licked it off.

The motion made their matte lipstick shine for a split second before drying again.

“It’s not often I find someone who actually compliments me on all this,” they said, making a sweeping motion from their head to their toes. “So mind if I indulge myself a bit?”

“No, not really,” I told them. “But, if you don’t mind me asking, before I make an ass out of myself,” I prefaced, “What pronouns are you cool with?”

It was a question I had learned to ask from Pidge, who once went on a full-out rant directed at me during the time they were questioning their gender and I had (unintentionally) been a massive dick.

Lance smirked, but it looked pleased. “So blunt. Gimme a guess,” they said.

I raised an eyebrow at the weird request but decided to go for it. “I mean, you referred to yourself as ‘another dude’ earlier, so, male? I guess?”

Lance laid his chin on top of his folded hands with his elbows resting on the table top. “Not bad. You’re half right,” he said with a smile. “But really, it just depends on where I am.”

I nodded, “So, where do the she/her pronouns apply?” I asked.

Lance chuckled, “Maybe if you agree to come out with me sometime, I’ll show you?” he offered.

I had a hard time not choking. Inwardly.

I probably looked constipated.

It had been a problem before.

“You… want to hang out?” I asked.

Lance gave me a lazy smile, “Would I ask you if I didn’t?”

I blinked. “Uh. Okay then.”

The soft sounds of clinking cups and the whirring of machines filled the space as Lance peered up at the clock and swiftly pulled a napkin from the dispenser.

“You like bars or no?” he asked, plucking a sharpie from where it had been resting behind his ear.

“Um, like lemon bars? Or chocolate? Because the answer varies depending, since chocolate is gross…” I told him, still panicked over the fact that my company was desired by someone other than Shiro or Pidge.

Lance looked at me with a smirk, pearly white teeth framed by immaculate makeup as he chuckled.

“I’m gonna let that whole chocolate thing slide,” he said with a laugh. “But actually I meant alcohol bars, as in places where people go to get drunk and dance. You like those kinds of bars?” he asked, laughing as I ran a hand through my hair to hide my embarrassment.

“Oh, um. Yeah, those are fine,” I told him.

Still tripping over the end of his chuckles, Lance continued, “Sounds good, man. I have an errand to run or I’d chat a bit more, but hit me up for details,” he said, sliding the napkin over to me.

I hadn’t even noticed him writing, but there was a phone number scrawled out in bright pink sharpie on the corner of the napkin.

“See you, Keith,” he said, giving me a little two-fingered salute as he slid off the chair, taking his coffee with him.

 

Group Chat – ‘ _Bless Pizza Rolls Forever’_

**_The Fire Nation Attacked:_** help

 _Hot Sprocket_ : no

 _Mom Friend:_ What’s up?

 ** _The Fire Nation Attacked:_** I think I’ve been hit on

 _Hot Sprocket:_ You rang?

 ** _The Fire Nation Attacked:_** Pidge why are you like this

 _Mom Friend:_ What?? Really?!?

 ** _The Fire Nation Attacked:_** You really don’t have to sound that surprised Shiro

 _Mom Friend:_ By who?

 ** _The Fire Nation Attacked:_** Cashier at Altea’s

 _Hot Sprocket:_ Oooh. Donut boy got a name?

 ** _The Fire Nation Attacked:_** Lance

 ** _The Fire Nation Attacked:_** He asked me if I liked bars

 ** _The Fire Nation Attacked:_** and I misunderstood that to mean the food kind

 _Hot Sprocket:_ Wait, and he _kept_ flirting after that?

 ** _The Fire Nation Attacked:_** I hate you

 _Hot Sprocket:_ Just saying, that’s dedication

 _Mom Friend:_ Pidge be nice

 _Mom Friend:_ This may never happen again

 ** _The Fire Nation Attacked:_** Okay never mind fuck you both

 _Hot Sprocket:_ ❤

 

New Chat – _Lance_

**_Keith_ :** Hey, this is Keith

 _Lance_ : !!

 _Lance_ : Aww you weren’t messing with me after all

 ** _Keith_ :** Uh

 ** _Keith_ :** Nope

 _Lance_ : So as far as alcohol bars go, you ever been to Club Volt?

 ** _Keith:_** Don’t think I’ve ever heard of it, actually

 _Lance_ : ❤

 _Lance_ : Fantastic

 

“Club Volt, Saturday, 9:00, the table near the stage, you’ll know which one”

 

Those were the instructions I was given as to when and (very specifically) where I’d be hanging out with Lance.

So I found myself in front of a bouncer at the front of the club, ID in hand, ready to go.

“Name?” the big guy asked, sounding bored as he looked at an index card held in his palm.

“Keith Kogane,” I told him, offering my license.

The man blinked and looked me up and down, “Mullet, huh? You here for Lance?”

I coughed, “Um, yeah?”

The guy nodded and unclasped the rope leading inside, “Have a good time,” he said, a small smile playing over his lips. I raised an eyebrow but didn’t question it too much as I walked inside.

The place was huge, way larger than it looked from the outside, with balconies wrapping around the second floor and everything. The dim light and smell of smoke melded well with the place’s rouge accents, gold appliances, and dark wood borders. The space looked less like a club and more like something out of a ritzy 20’s film or an opera house. It was an odd mix of modern and vintage, with lively jazz piano covers of pop songs playing over the speakers, and the bartenders donned in tight t-shirts with suspenders.

Very hipster-esque.

I would never admit to liking it quite as much as I did.

I found myself pulling at the fabric of my shirt to fan myself in the warm thrall of people, all mostly male. Gay club, then? I scanned the room to find five or six different couples spattered about the immediate space. Gay club, then.

The stage was obviously the trophy piece of the establishment, adorned with heavy red velvet curtains that billowed out to reveal a slick black stage surface, and gold embellishments trailing all around its edge where it stuck out like the leg of a “T” to let performers walk out into the crowd a bit. I straightened my blazer, glad (for once) that it didn’t make me look overdressed (and it was one of the only form-fitting pieces of clothing I owned that wasn’t a T-shirt, so that was a plus).

 Looking around, I was hoping it really would be as easy to find the table as Lance had said it would be. I searched those near the front, at the end of the “T,” and spotted the difference between tables almost immediately.

While each was decorated with a single fresh rose in a glass vase, the one at the end had an explosion of at least 2 dozen red roses and three tea lights surrounded by petals scattered on its surface. I huffed a laugh and walked over to it, looking at the fancy parchment reading “Reserved” and underneath that, “Keith” in bright pink sharpie.

I pulled out a chair and sat down, not overlooking the way a few other guests stared.

Only a second passed before a man with a pristine handlebar mustache and perfectly slicked-back ginger hair approached me. “Keith, I presume?” he asked.

“M-hmm,” I hummed dumbly in surprise.

“Fantastic! I’m your server, Coran. Can I get you anything to start off? A G&T? Or perhaps you’re more of a wine person?”

Since when were there servers at bars? Maybe the place was fancier than I had originally thought. It certainly looked the part.

I cleared my throat, “A sidecar?”

The man smiled brightly, “Great! I’ll have that right over,” he said.

Not four minutes had passed when he returned.

“That was quick,” I said before I could stop myself.

The man grinned, “Consider it part of your VIP status for the night,” he told me.

My eyebrows drew together, “VIP? Lance must be a regular here, then,” I mused.

Coran chuckled, “That’s one way to put it. Speaking of, the show should be starting soon,” he said.

Then, as if on cue, the music died down and the lights dimmed while a piano lightly trilled.

The entire bar fell silent apart from a few hushed whispers in the back.

You could hear the muffled “click-clack-click” of heels behind the curtains before the center of the red fabric ruffled slightly.

From some unknown place within the club, an emcee announced the performance with a quick intro ending in,

“Ladies, gentlemen, and distinguished guests, please give a warm welcome to… Misty Rios!”

The gentle quiet that had enveloped the place erupted into shouts and whoops of praise as people scrambled for closer seats.

Where the hell was my… date? …Friend? …Coffee person?

The piano started up again, and the curtains fluttered. This time, however, an ankle wrapped in fishnets and a bright white stiletto slowly emerged from the material as more and more of a tan leg stuck itself out pointedly before finally reaching a ruffle of feathers at its hip. The crowd broke out in wolf whistles and applause before the curtains suddenly swung open and the piano came to the end of its crescendo revealing…

Wait… that…?

“The French are glad to- die for love, they delight in fighting duels~”

There was no mistaking it. That was Lance, dressed in nothing but fishnets, white elbow-length gloves, and a tight blue corset with glittery accents that left very little to the imagination.

Except maybe where the hell his dick went.

“Misty” waved around two large white feathered fans, coyishly covering herself and batting her long, sparkly eyelashes over the edge of them.

“But I prefer a man who lives and gives…” she sang, trailing her right-hand fan over her left arm, jingling the dazzling costume jewelry there, “Expensive jewels!”

Misty held the crowd in the palm of her hand, and I’d like to think I was too taken aback by the fact that that was _Lance_ on the stage, but truth be told, I was right there with them.

With a quick shake of her hip, Misty started in on a small jazz step as the music picked up.

“A kiss on the hand may be quite continental, but diamonds are a girl’s best friend~” she sang, blowing a kiss to the crowd, who ate it up hungrily.

The song continued on, and it seemed like every second Misty had something new to give as she excitedly named off expensive jewelry brands. I doubt that I could have turned away, especially when those shimmery eyes looked right at me and just _stayed_ there.

“There may come a time when a hard-boiled employer thinks you’re awful niiiice,” she sang as she descended the obsidian stairs to the floor and came to stand in front of one of the men holding out a tip for her.

“But get that ice, or else no dice!” she trilled, snatching the money and tapping the man lightly on the cheek with one of her folded fans.

Then it was like the world zeroed down to nothing but Misty and I as she locked her eyes onto mine once again, a predatory stalk in her swaying hips as she crossed over to my seat.

“He’s your guy when stocks are high,”

She trailed the feather tips of her fan along the edge of my jaw, encouraging me to look up at her. I could only hope the dim lights obscured as much of my face as possible.

“But beware when they start to-”

Misty quickly placed both of her hands on my thighs, lightly pushing them apart as she dropped down between them, her face level with my knees, all the while playfully singing,

“Desceeeend~”

I had to remind myself to breathe.

She popped back up, still gently squeezing my thighs and rolling her shoulders. She continued, “It’s then that those louses go back to their spouses!” she sang, lightly tapping at my parted lips with a gloved finger.

“Diamonds are a girl’s best friend!” She turned away, popping her scantily clothed ass right in front of me and throwing a wink over her shoulder as she cutely kicked up a leg and found her next victim.

There wasn’t much left of the song when she hastily, yet gracefully (in three-inch heels??) found her way back up to the stage and started dancing again.

“Diamonds! I don’t mean rhinestones~” she continued on and the music came to a finale while she fanned herself in a way she knew would make her long curls gently bounce around her delicate face.

“But diamonds~”

She made her way back to the curtains without even looking at them, posing and swaying her hips as she opened them wide and held them there.

“Are a girl’s best~ best friend!” she sang loud before swiftly closing the curtains in front of her.

I didn’t realize I had been sitting ramrod straight until I felt myself relax into the soft upholstery of the chair, letting out a huge breath. I joined in on the applause before reaching out to take what was most likely the longest drink of my life. I’d sipped down the whole thing before the glass found its way back to the tabletop.

Like some sort of genie, Coran seemed to rise from the smoke surrounding the room to collect the glass and grant my wish for another, but a whiskey this time.

By the time he brought back the requested drink I had mostly calmed down and collected myself. “So that explains the whole ‘regular visitor’ thing then,” I commented. Coran chuckled politely, “You’ll have to forgive me, Lance didn’t want you knowing before you saw Misty,” he explained. “He thought it would make for a nice surprise.”

I huffed a laugh, “Well he was right about that one.”

“Was he really, though?” Coran questioned. “I was under the impression that he went out in cross most of the time,” he told me.

I nodded, “He does, but that’s just not really where my mind went,” I told him. “Haven’t exactly met many drag queens.”

Coran nodded, “Well, he’s backstage getting out of character now, so he should be back out in about 30 minutes, tops. But he seemed rather excited about this, so I imagine it’ll only take him around 15.” The man winked and his mustache twitched upwards with a smile as he left me to my own devices once more.

And he was right, at around the 17-minute mark or so, I looked over to find Lance sitting himself down beside me. The heavy makeup he’d had on earlier had been wiped off, replacing the bright red on his lips from earlier with a burgundy color that matched the dark skinny jeans he was wearing with a flowy white silk crop top. The same heels from earlier.

“Hey,” he said, simply.

For some reason, I couldn’t help but laugh.

Lance seemed put-off by that. “What? Did I miss something?” he asked, looking down at his outfit and patting at his hair with a slight frown.

I waved my hand in dismissal, “Sorry, it’s just, I come here not knowing what to expect, then you just _floor me_ , I can’t even speak for a good five minutes, and then you just sit down and, ‘hey!’ me?” I told him, trying to fight down my terrible laugh. “C’mon, give me a break.”

Lance perked back up. “’Speechless,’ huh? Good. That was the goal,” he said, smoothing the front of his jeans. “Misty has that effect on people.”

I rolled my eyes, “I think _you_ have that effect on people,” I told him.

Lance smirked, “So I take that to mean you were floored and speechless every time you saw me at Altea’s, then?” he asked.

I took another sip of my drink, “There's no good way to answer that,” I told him.

Lance laughed, drawing the attention of a few patrons, who looked on with the greenest of gazes.

Without warning, he reached out and smoothed his hand down one of the lapels of my blazer. “Maybe next time you come in for a cup of coffee I’ll break into song and dance in your lap again, how about that?” he asked, a flirty smile on his lips.

I raised an eyebrow. “Normally I’d say ‘yeah, right’ but something tells me you’d actually take that as a challenge,” I told him.

To my surprise, that hit him just right as his loud guffaws bounced off the back wall.

“You’re probably right,” he said, “I wouldn’t test me if I were you.”

He grabbed my glass from the table and took a drink from it. When he pulled away there was a crisp brownish-purple kiss mark around the edge.

“I was drinking that,” I told him.

He nodded, “Yes, but I’m paying for it, so you’ll let me steal some,” he said, very matter-of-factly.

I clicked my tongue, “Fair enough.”

Then I finally got the confidence to tease a bit as I picked up the glass, turned it purposefully to the edge he had taken a sip from and deliberately took my own drink from the same spot. I watched Lance over the rim of the glass, locking eyes with him. When I pulled the glass away I made sure to lick my lips, smearing the pigment I knew would be ghosting over my bottom lip.

The barely-there stickiness of it felt… _right_. But that thought lingered for only a moment before Lance spoke up with a smirk. “My color looks good on you, but you’d be cuter in pink,” he told me.

My eyebrows shot up to the ceiling, and rather than giving a normal response, my dumb ass said,

“Really?”


	2. "F-M-O-T-H-O-T-L" Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance is very good at naming shades of nail polish and is very much on board with Keith being a mechanic.

I had texted Lance back and forth for the rest of the week. It would always be seconds before he shot back replies, unless he was at one of his two jobs.

I had come into the coffee shop a few times after that, and each time Lance would spend a few minutes of his break chatting with me. He’d begun writing things that were definitely not my name on my cups. One day it was “Yummy,” another it was “Hot Stuff,” somehow always managing to be both a pun and a compliment at the same time.

I stood outside the shop that day oddly nervous, but with good cause. Taking a final deep breath, I forced myself to walk over to the door and pushed myself through it.

Lance’s automatic, “Welcome to Altea’s!” rang out before he laid eyes on me. “Oh, hey Keith!”

Steeling myself, I gathered up the courage to wave at him, then walked toward the counter.

“Same as usual?” he asked, giving me a warm smile.

“Um, yeah,” I told him, hands safely hidden behind the counter. For now.

Lance scribbled down the order on the cup as he hummed to whatever gaudy pop song was playing over the speakers.

“That’s $2.95,” he told me.

I slid my card out of my wallet slowly, swallowing before nervously handing it to him.

Half of me hoped he would overlook it and I’d be free of the anxiety rolling in my stomach, while the other half of me wanted him to notice, wanted him to say something.

For a moment, I thought it’d be the former, until the very last second when the card had already passed from my hand to his.

Lance did a double take. I flinched, and instinctively started pulling my hand back. Lance was faster, though, as he grabbed my hand and yanked it forward again.

“Keith! Did you?!” he asked, dropping my card to the countertop as his other hand joined in on grasping mine, turning it at different angles.

“You painted them!” he said, staring excitedly at my nails, done up in a thin layer of opalescent pinkish-white.

I could only find it in myself to nod.

“Oh my gosh, they’re so cute!” he rambled on. “Like, sloppy as all hell, but still cute!” he said.

I groaned and tried to pull my hand back, but Lance was having none of that as his grip on me tightened. “I can’t believe it. Like, okay, that’s not entirely true, I had an _inkling_ of a feeling, but,” he said, gently rubbing his thumb over my knuckles, “It suits you.”

I cleared my throat and once more silently pleaded to have my hand back. He finally relented.

“Um, thanks,” I told him.

Lance was all smiles as he swiped my card and handed it back to me, taking another second to stare at my hand as he did.

“My, how the tables have turned,” he said playfully as I walked over to my usual seat and he waved on the next customer.

That day, my coffee had “Sweetie” written on the side.

 

“147 W. Blanchett Street, Apartment 201, 5:00, it’s the one with the cute ass doormat”

 

Those were the instructions Lance had given me as to where we’d be meeting up for the second time. It was his apartment, and even as I walked up the stairwell to the second floor, I found myself trying to find some excuse to get out of it.

I knew I wouldn’t find an acceptable one, but anxiety does weird shit to your head.

205, 204, 203, 202…

201.

The doormat was a kitten surrounded by flowers playing with a piece of ribbon. It looked like something your grandma would have in front of her door but still.

Cute ass doormat.

Before I could try to talk myself out of it one more time, I knocked on the door.

It took Lance all of five seconds to reach it, and then I could hear the undoing of multiple locks before the door finally swung open.

The first thing I noticed was the periwinkle blue yoga pants, and the second was Lance’s lack of nail polish. I’d never seen the guy with bare nails before.

“Hey,” I greeted.

He smiled and waved me inside. “Hey,” he returned, softly shutting the door behind me.

I took a good look at the place. It was all mismatched colors and furniture, somehow making the white walls look bright with different posters and miscellaneous notes and pictures taped there. The best part was the large, red leather sofa, so worn with age that I highly doubted it was Lance’s first choice. That didn’t mean I couldn’t give him shit about it, though.

“Nice couch.”

“Yeah. Matches your jacket,” he threw back with a smirk.

“What’s wrong with my jacket? I like it,” I told him, slipping it off of my shoulders and hanging it on his wobbly coat rack.

“Good, because I like my couch so you can stop your bitching now thank you,” he said, lightheartedly laughing.

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, so what’s the plan?”

Lance smiled and wiggled his shoulders as he flopped onto the offensive couch.

“I’m going to do your nails,” he said, holding up what looked like a tackle box but with bright colors splotched all over its black surface.

I blinked, “You’re going to what?”

Lance chuckled, “C’mon, you can’t tell me you didn’t think you looked cute with polish on. Besides, this way I can teach you how to get rid of all those gross streaks you had last time,” he said.

I gnawed on my lip longer than I should have.

“Uh… Okay. I guess.”

Lance very nearly squealed as he excitedly waved me over to sit on the couch with him. When I did, I was thrown headfirst into a world of questions that were immediately answered for me.

“So what color should we do? That pink was cute before but- Oooh! I know! Red. Definitely red. That’s the one. So then like a deep rose ‘does the red carpet make my ass look good’ kind of red or a ‘fuck me over the hood of this Lamborghini’ kind of red?”

Lance didn’t answer that question, he just pulled out a small bottle of polish dangerously close to matching the couch as he continued rambling, picking my hand up and analyzing it as if it were a test to pass.

“We’re going to have to file and primp the shit out of these. Holy fuck what did you even do to get this many callouses?” he asked.

I shrugged, “I work at a body shop. It happens,” I told him.

Lance blinked up at me, and then back down at the small bottle of polish he’d chosen earlier, then repeated the motion. Grabbing it up, he placed the bottle back in the box and pulled out a different shade.

“I’ve changed my mind. ‘Fuck me over the hood of this Lamborghini’ red it is.”

 

Lance worked on my hands for what felt like hours. We talked about how he had gotten into drag and how his parents didn’t really talk to him much after he started dressing in cross, but his older siblings still kept him in the loop and didn’t seem to mind. We talked about how I’d become a mechanic and had tried to put myself through school once as an astronomy major but had ended up dropping out. We talked about Lance’s friend Hunk, who was apparently the bouncer at Club Volt I’d taken such little note of. We talked about how Pidge was a demon. We talked about how to correctly put down the polish and how long to wait before doing a second coat. And then we just didn’t talk.

I’d only ever entered comfortable silence with Shiro and Pidge. Outside of that realm, I was always too anxious or awkward to let the quiet sit for long. Then again, it wasn’t radio silence. One thing about Lance was that he was never completely quiet. As he worked on my nails he hummed to a song only he could hear, or when he finally got around to putting some playlist on, he would join in on the melody with a voice that blended perfectly with the tune.

When he was done, my nails were a bright red, still blunt, but expertly and evenly rounded so that if they grew out, they’d look longer than they actually were. My callouses were long gone, and whatever cuticle oil Lance had used on me smelled like citrus. Something told me I was going to miss those callouses later. But in the moment?

I couldn’t stop staring.

Lance could barely contain himself. “Well?? You can’t just keep looking at your hands like that without giving me any feedback here!”

I swallowed. “They’re-” I paused, looking back up to where Lance was practically bouncing in his seat. “I, um,” I started again. “…I didn’t really think they could ever look this pretty,” I told him.

Lance glowed, a smile reaching across his maze of light freckles. “Special Lance treatment. No charge,” he said.

“…This time, at least.”

 

And I _would_ miss the callouses come Monday, but for an entirely different reason than I had anticipated.

Against all odds, I made it through the day without any of the other mechanics seeing. I was the main painter at the shop, which meant a mask to hide the shame and gloves to hide the hands. For once it was a job I was grateful for.

When I finally got around to working on the cars in the main shop it was mostly one-person jobs. Maintenance work, detailing. Nothing that required another person to do.

So I was safe for the time being.

And as much as it scared me, “Fuck me over the hood of this Lamborghini” red was staring to grow on me.

 

Somehow I managed to go an entire week without anyone seeing. And on Friday morning, I was in dismay to see a fair amount of the polish had chipped off.

That night I found myself in front of Club Volt, and its burly bouncer, once more.

The lazy “Name?” question came again.

“Keith Kogane,” I responded. “You’re Hunk, right?”

That got his attention as he looked up from what was a whole clipboard worth of names that day.

The man’s scary demeanor seemed to die away. “Yeah, man. You’re Lance’s friend, right? Go on in,” he told me, seemingly surprised and somewhat gleeful about the fact that I knew his name.

I decided I liked Hunk.

Looking around the club, I was forced to find a different seat than the one I'd been at last time, finding all the tables taken while I walked in on the middle of a show. It was some other queen this time, still in burlesque, but not quite as delicate as Misty.

Then, speak of the devil, I heard someone call out “Hey, Keith!” from the bar.

At this point I’d seen Lance in cross more times than I could count, but his outfit still stunned me when I picked him out from the crowd.

He wore a slinky black dress with a slit up his right leg that crawled all the way up to his hip and then turned into a sleeveless turtleneck with a very low-cut draping back and a peekaboo hole in front. Very red heels.

I sat myself down beside him at the bar. “Some occasion I don’t know about?” I asked.

Lance looked confused as he took a sip of whatever sweet-looking blue cocktail he was drinking.

In some freak accident, I ended up saying exactly what I meant.

“You look good. Like really good, even for you.”

Lance sputtered in his drink and tried to cover it up by swallowing and clearing his throat. “Occasion? No, no occasion. I always look this good, you’re just now appreciating me in my full glory,” he said, cheeks as red as his heels.

I smirked, “M-hmm. We’ll go with that,” I told him, earning myself a small glare.

I ordered a whiskey and set up a tab. “You’re not performing tonight, then?” I asked. Lance shook his head. “I figured you needed to see what other queens looked like in order to fully comprehend just how stunning Misty really is,” he said, winking.

I rolled my eyes. “Anybody ever tell you that you have an ego the size of North America?”

Lance waggled his eyebrows, “No, usually they’re saying that about something else.”

I snorted, “So we’re at the dirty joke stage, then?”

Lance grinned slyly, “Yeah. Like a nice pair of sixth graders.”

I smirked, “Well you started it.”

Drinking with Lance was fun, and idly I started to realize that I had already started considering Lance a friend (without having made a new one in several years, the realization threw me off a bit when I first acknowledged it). We bickered and fought but there was something underneath the squabble. You could see it in the light tilt of Lance’s head as he smirked, or the way his eyes crinkled at the sides. You could see it in the way I’d drag up little bits from conversations we’d had in the past. So while the bickering was fun, there were no hard feelings behind it. The flirting was still there every once in a while too, but most of that had just turned into casual joking. It was easy.

I liked easy.

Until Lance started examining my hands again.

“Aw, my masterpiece is disintegrating already?” he whined. I nodded, “It _has_ been a week since they went on, and I managed not to break any of them, so I call that a win,” I told him.

He scoffed, “You might as well have. So many chips! They need re-done, you caveman,” he told me.

I folded them back into my fist on the bar. “Oh. Yeah... about that. I was actually thinking I might just let them, y’know, breathe for a while?” I muttered.

Lance looked at me in mock offense, “Why? My nails not good enough for you, pretty boy?” he asked, rolling his eyes before he continued. “You’ve only had painted nails for maybe two weeks, tops. Your nails aren’t suffocating. I mean, unless you start getting into falsies, you should be fine for a good long while,” he explained.

I bit at my lip, trying to come up with some other excuse in vain.

“It’s just that it got kind of hard to hide them at the shop this week,” I admitted.

And for once out of the entire time I had known him, Lance was silent. I took another long drink within the quiet until I couldn’t stand it anymore and was forced to look at him, spitting out a “ _What?_ ” before I got a good look at his face.

He looked so sad. Eyes wide, forehead wrinkled in concern.

“You were hiding them?” he asked, voice small.

I swallowed down my shame. “Sorry, Lance. I liked them, they were really pretty and everything, but… I just wasn’t ready to put up with that kind of shit from my coworkers again. I mean, they already treated me weird when they figured out I was gay. I didn’t need them thinking that I, um, couldn’t hold my own or something. Or that some nail polish made me less of a mechanic,” I explained.

A soft touch had me looking back at my fist, where Lance’s hand rested gently on top of it.

“You shouldn’t have to hide it,” Lance said, his voice fervent.

Looking at his face, there was an odd mix of determination and hurt there. More than that, you could see an honest, deep-seated resolution in the set of his mouth. “You’re a great mechanic, Keith. And if those assholes decide that nail polish makes you less of one, you show them up. You give it everything you’ve got, leave their asses in the dirt, and you do it _in style_ ,” he instructed, giving my hand a small squeeze.

“And if all else fails, you rough ‘em up with those gorgeous muscles of yours and they’ll never mention it again because that would mean admitting that they just had their asses handed to them by a guy wearing _bright red nails_.”

I blinked at him in surprise, before experimentally squeezing his hand back.

“…Thanks, Lance.”

He crossed his legs, kicking at my shin with his stilettoed foot. “Anytime, hot stuff.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo boy.
> 
> The comments on the previous chapters gave me SO MANY GOOD IDEAS. You guys have been so good to me already, I actually cried <3 
> 
> Thanks for the love!  
> (And who knows, if you guys send me some more headcanons, I might be able to work them in as well, just drop me a note down below!)


	3. "Just-How-Gay-Are-You?" Green

 

Monday came even though I wasn’t quite ready for it. My gloves helped, but for the first time since I’d bought them I almost wished they weren’t fingerless. Lance’s pep talk had done me more good than I’d liked to admit, though. The morning after our talk I had walked into CVS trying to find a shade of red as close to the one that was still clinging stubbornly onto my nails as possible.

Checking out had been as strange of an experience as the first time.

The more I wore my nails in public, however, the easier it became to just let them be. I wore them to go pick up takeout, buy groceries, grab a drink at the Seven Eleven, etc. Each time it got a smidge easier. And though they still felt foreign, by the end of the weekend I felt less trepidation toward my new addition and more excitement.

Though I would never admit it, walking into work was still terrifying.

It took a fair amount of my self-control to try and relax, to keep from hiding my nails within my fists or my pockets. Half the day had already passed and no one had taken notice or at least hadn’t said anything, but that didn’t stop the constant coiling of my stomach that came from wondering about when it _might_ happen.

It didn’t happen.

Not that day.

 

Chat – _Lance_

 _Lance_ : Hey hot stuff

 _Keith_ : Hey Lance

 _Lance_ : (wow rude)

 _Lance_ : (And to think I even did your nails once)

 _Lance_ : (You should be nicer to me, especially when I have something you’ll like)

 _Keith_ : ?

 

Group Chat – _‘Shut Your Fuck’_

 _The Fire Nation Attacked:_ Attachment - [nails.jpeg]

 _Hot Sprocket:_ Keith what

 _Hot Sprocket:_ I don’t paint my nails, red isn’t even my color

 _Hot Sprocket:_ Is this some sort of reference for Shiro?

 _Hot Sprocket:_ Is this a new meme?

 _Hot Sprocket:_ What am I looking at here?

 _Mom Friend:_ Don’t ask me, I have no idea why Keith does things

 _The Fire Nation Attacked:_ They’re mine, you jackasses

 _Hot Sprocket:_ Ahem

 _Hot Sprocket:_ wat

 

Lance’s apartment, Wednesday, 6:00, bring butter

Those were the instructions given to me for my second meetup with Lance at his place.

I wasn’t sure if I should be afraid of the butter addition or…

Yeah no I was definitely frightened.

Still I came, a pack of butter in-hand as I knocked on the door with the kitten doormat for the second time. I was not prepared for what I saw when that door opened just seconds later.

Lance, for the first time since I’d met him, was wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants. No makeup.  Blank nails. He looked like your average everyday _dude_.

And that’s not to say he didn’t look good. Because that would be flat-out wrong.

Sometimes I forgot just _how_ gay I was.

“Uh, Keith? You okay there, buddy?” Lance asked, waving a hand in front of my face to get my attention. Embarrassed, I cleared my throat, “Yeah, um, sorry,” I told him, floundering for something else to say.

“I brought butter?”

Lance smiled as he looked down at the plastic bag, “You sure did. So, are you coming in with that or not?”

Walking past Lance into the apartment, I finally found an okay thing to say.

“So, why did you need it anyway?”

Lance smirked as he closed the door.

“Because apparently you like bars,” he told me. I raised an eyebrow at the cryptic answer.

“Specifically lemon, not chocolate, if memory serves.”

 

An hour or two later, amongst a mess of sugar and splashes of lemon juice here and there, we stood face to face with a fresh batch of lemon bars.

As Lance stuffed his face with one, he leaned over the counter and pressed a button on his remote, turning his stereo in the corner on. To my surprise, rather than the pop music he tended to quote 24/7, what came on was a gentle, slow song.

Lance swayed his hips, not like he did when he danced as Misty, but something natural, bouncing a little as he pushed off from the counter and made his way into the living room.

“Tall and tan and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking~”

Lance sang alongside Sinatra, a lower tenor to his voice I’d never heard him sing with before.

He took another bite and kept singing despite his full mouth, crumbs falling out of one side of his lazy smile. Then another voice joined Sinatra, but Lance didn’t skip a beat.

“Olha que coisa mais linda mais cheia de graça~ É ela menina que vem e que passa Num doce balanço a caminho do mar...”

I tilted my head to the side and swallowed the bite I’d unknowingly been working on since Lance had started (whoops).

“Spanish?” I asked him, but he shook his head and answered, “Portuguese.”

“You’re Portuguese?” I asked, dumbly. Lance smirked but shook his head, “Nope, Cuban.” he told me. “My mom just liked the song. She was raised in Cuba.”

I nodded. “And your father?”

Lance shrugged, “American. An all-around anglo-mutt,” he laughed, “We have no idea about his ancestry except ‘pale-as-fuck.’”

“So that’s where those blue eyes come from, then?” I asked.

Lance gave me a smirk, “Why? You think they’re pretty?” he asked over his shoulder, batting his lashes playfully.

“I think _you’re_ pretty. In general,” I told him, not realizing just how painfully honest it sounded until Lance was staring at me with wide eyes.

I backtracked, trying to come up with something else that wouldn’t leave my stomach somewhere on the ground. “I mean, um, you keep up with-”

“Thank you.”

Lance was looking at me like I was a meteor shower, or some other equally rare sort of enigma.

“Uh, yeah… no problem.”

 

“Pidge, c’mon, it’s been like five minutes. My nails are painted, it’s not like half my hand was amputated or anything.”

Pidge, who had been staring at and holding my hand for what had felt like an eternity, finally looked up, “And you said lover-boy chose the color?”

I rolled my eyes, “His name is _Lance_ ,” I said, for what must have been the fiftieth time since Shiro and Pidge had walked in the door to my apartment not ten minutes before.

“Why red?” Shiro asked, taking a bite of the freshly delivered pizza.

“Because psychology, tall one,” Pidge supplied.

Shiro cocked his head the side innocently while Pidge gave an over-exaggerated groan, “You know, like colors, and the meanings behind them?”

When Shiro showed no further signs of comprehension, Pidge drug a hand down her face.

“Red equals passion. Passion equals Lance-in-Keith’s-pants.”

“Ah.”

I rolled my eyes. “No, red equals red. He probably just thought it would go with my jacket,” I told her, “He’s meticulous when it comes to matching.”

“And you’re meticulous when it comes to never letting me or Shiro have any fun,” she said.

“I already told you, I’m not going to wear a skirt,” I told her, finally yanking my hand back. The redhead pouted at the loss, but continued on, “When did you get so boring?”

I was about to retort when my message tone went off. I slid my phone open, already having a pretty good idea of who it might be.

Chat – _Lance_

 _Lance:_ HEY

 _Lance:_ HOT STUFF

 _Lance:_ WE’VE GOT AN EMERGENCY ON OUR HANDS

 _Keith:_ Like an actual emergency or a “you forgot to record the last episode of RuPaul’s again” type of emergency?

 _Lance:_ -_-

 _Lance:_ A REAL ONE

 _Keith:_ If you’re sure, then.

 _Lance:_ Quick question first

 _Lance:_ Are your nails still pretty?

 

Pidge had lost it for a solid fifteen minutes after I’d told her what I’d be doing for the rest of the evening.

Then she’d insisted on letting her and Shiro watch.

I refused to tell her the name of the club.

“I _will_ find you, Kogane!” she yelled, typing furiously into her phone as I ran out the door. I climbed down the stairs to jump into my car only to find Lance’s Volkswagen Golf waiting outside the entrance. His window was rolled down and there was Misty, all done up in her full glory.

“Get in, gorgeous! It’s time for your debut!”

I pulled the door open and jumped inside, taking in her outfit of the night.

It was a tight white bodice, with strappy satin sleeves that drooped down and were acting more as decoration than any real support. It had blue beaded swirling accents all over and when it got to her hips, the material trailed off into a tulle mini high-low skirt (even though the “lowest” point was barely covering the edge of her bloomer-clad ass). She accessorized with the same silky white gloves she’d had on last time, but with pearl jewelry instead of rhinestones.

“You look-”

“Stunning! As always,” she interrupted, while I cleared my throat, “And as much as I like being told so, we don’t have that much time, so I’m going to have to teach you how to be a drag queen in under an hour and a half, okay?” she said, flipping her chocolate-colored ringlets over her shoulder.

I nodded as she started off on a tirade that would not end until we were halfway through getting my voice and outfit prepped.

“Okay, so, this is where it gets awkward,” Misty said.

I looked at her like 20 minutes of me trying (and mostly failing) to not crack my voice whilst getting it to a higher, almost nasal pitch hadn’t been awkward. For me, at least.

“We need to do something about your dick.”

I must have made a highly pained expression because Misty’s face softened a touch, “Don’t worry, it doesn’t actually hurt that bad, it’s just a little different. You’ll get used to it! No damage to the jewels, guaranteed!” she said.

 

30 minutes later I was in costume, feeling like a beaten pig.

“Are you - _ugh_ \- sure the corset’s necessary?” I asked, wheezing slightly.

Misty, tired from cinching me up, was pulling out a tackle box like the one that had held her nail polish, except when she opened this one it was filled with various bottles and tubes and compacts.

“It’s a _burlesque club_ , Keith. _Of course_ the corset is necessary,” Misty stated, matter-of-fact. “Lila let me use her stuff since none of mine would match you,” she told me, filing through the tubes until she found one she liked and immediately started dabbing the cream at odd intervals across my face.

Misty let out a “tsk” under her breath. I glowered at my torturer, who was roughly patting at one of the spots she had put down earlier. “What is it now?” I asked.

The queen outright pouted, “This is completely unfair, I’ll have you know. It takes practically half a tube of concealer to cover up all my freckles. And here you are, all blemish-free and perfect complexion, UGH. Bet you don’t even wear sunblock Mr. ‘I’m a mechanic and I’ve only recently been putting any effort in’ bleh bleh~”

I could feel a blush working up despite myself and decided that putting on a smirking bravado might cover it up better than the concealer.

“That’s _Miss_ ‘I’m a mechanic and I’ve only recently been putting any effort in bleh bleh~’ to you,” I teased.

Misty blew her hair out of her eyes, “Not with that voice,” she played right back, “And add some sex appeal, would you? I’ve already got you in corset for crying out loud,” she said.

I coughed and shifted on the stool she had me perched on, “Yeah… wasn’t really expecting that to be how you’d see my dick for the first time.”

Misty gave me a predatory grin from underneath her lashes, “So you _were_ expecting me to see it at some point,” Misty stated, catching me with my foot in my mouth.

I’d like to say the noise I made was much more dignified than it actually was, but Misty only chuckled lightly in response. “I, ah… wait, we only have fifteen minutes left?” I asked, looking over at the dressing room’s digital clock.

Misty twisted her head around, curls swinging out as she saw for herself. “FUCK! And we still have to get your wig on!!”

 

The next few minutes were a whirlwind of prodding, poking, and pinning. I felt like a voodoo doll at the end, but finally Misty clapped her hands together excitedly. “You’re done!” she squealed, taking my hand and pulling me toward the full-length row of mirrors on the other side of the room.

I was almost scared to look, but when I did-

“Keith Kogane, meet _Flaye Ming!_ ”

The girl in the mirror looked like an outrageous attempt at a porcelain doll, with rouge cheeks and impossibly wide doe-eyes paired with lashes that rivaled Aphrodite’s. Her midnight black hair swooped down her left shoulder in full, soft waves, bangs falling into her eyes coyly. She wore a red velvet corset that laced up with black ribbon and ended in an expertly-tied bow. The lacy “skirt” was open in front, but draped in the back, giving her the appearance of delicate hips. Then there were sheer stockings, held up by a black ribbon garter.

Her lips were pink and her nails were red.

She looked like she was someone who belonged next to Misty.

“Well I didn’t put in all this work for you to _not say anything!_ ” the other girl in the mirror cried. I blinked and the girl in red did too.

“I-ah… sorry, Misty, I’m just… this is _very different_ ,” I told her, my voice no longer matching my appearance.

The queen’s excited face fell slightly, “O-oh. Yeah? Okay,” she said softly, “Um, Keith, if you’re really not comfortable then we can-”

“NO!” I shouted, making her jump. “No,” I repeated, a little quieter, “I mean it’s definitely… not what I’m used to, but… It’s not _bad_ ,” I told her, “I was just caught a little off-guard, you know?”

Misty nodded, but still looked sad. All at once I realized I hated that and needed to fix it as soon as possible.

“I mean, have you _seen_ my legs in this?” I asked, “I look like a nympho in these nylons,” I told her, striking the most ridiculous pose I could manage.

 

While joking around and getting all dressed up for the first time had been (weirdly) fun and all, Misty had called me out to do an actual job.

It was a meet-and-greet night at the club, something they did every month or so to bring in new customers with the hopes that a more close-up approach might encourage them to return. Plus, it gave the queens ample time to flirt and draw in regulars.

Misty had apparently never missed one.

The emergency from earlier was the fact that not just one or two but _five_ of the queens had decided to skip out on that night’s event, so they were looking at not only fewer performances, but also overcrowded queens on a night that was notorious for handsy customers.

Misty had hoped that the novelty of a new queen would be enough to make up for the lack of girls that evening. For some reason, I had been the first person to cross her mind.

We were backstage, and I was once again propped up on a stool while Misty worked her magic on the finishing details, namely the shoes. They were the strappy red stilettos I’d seen Lance wear at the club before with the long black dress. Luckily enough, we wore the same shoe size.

“I dunno about this, Misty. I’ve never even worn heels before and these… look like they could actually kill me,” I told her.

“ _Ming_ , sweetie, this is fine. Besides, you won’t even have to do that much! It’s just a quick walk across the stage, then a few stairs, and then there’s an abundance of things to lean or sit on, okay? You can do that,” she told me, fastening the last buckle on the heels.

“Just give ‘em a little try, okay? For me? Ballet flats will _destroy_ this outfit. I swear,” she said, pouting.

I huffed a sigh, but decided to take my chances. I clung to the stool at first, not used to the posture it took to straighten my upper half up. After a second or two of just testing my balance, I took an experimental step forward-

And didn’t break my ankle in half.

After a few more steps in them, it was still obvious that I’d never worn a pair of heels in my life, but from what Lance said, as long as I paid attention and took small steps, I’d be fine.

“Plus, they do great things for your ass,” Misty said, biting her knuckle playfully and winking as she turned around to discuss something with Coran.

I hoped I was wearing enough makeup to cover my blush.

All the queens were lined up backstage, and none of them were too ashamed to openly stare at the “new girl”. Their expressions were unreadable, though. All except one, who made her way over to me with a sly grin. Her outfit was all purple lace and sequins, very jazzy, with heels at least an inch taller than mine. Not that she needed it, she was tall anyway, with straight, flowing white hair that looked… strangely natural.

“I’m Annie, Annie Lingus,” the queen introduced herself, her voice low and smooth but with a distinct feminine edge. Annie definitely went for the seductive approach. She leaned in, “But when we’re out of here my name is Lotor,” she whispered, like it was some sort of secret.

I cleared my throat. “Um, Flaye Ming. More ‘Ming’ than ‘Flaye’ though, I guess,” I told her, “But until today it was just Keith,” I said, holding out my hand for her to shake. Annie chuckled, and held my hand, but rather than shaking it, she pressed a quick kiss to the back of my palm.

“Charmed, Ming,” she said, “Don’t get eaten up out there,” she instructed teasingly before turning on her heel and finger-waving as she moved back through the line-up of queens. Lance returned shortly after.

Outside, there were cheers as Coran’s voice floated up through the smoky air I knew waited past the curtains.

I swallowed, hard, before a firm grip on my wrist brought me back down to Earth.

“Hey, Keith, it’s okay,” Misty said, though she said it in Lance’s voice, which somehow made me feel better. Her thumb brushed against the inside of my wrist soothingly, and her voice was just as soft when she continued, “This isn’t as scary as you’re making it out to be in your head, I promise. You just have to think about it like you’re doing everyday stuff, alright? You’re just walking. And when you get out there, Coran’s going to introduce you, and ask you some questions,” she told me.

I flipped my head around to look at her with wide, panicked eyes. “You didn’t say anything about answering questions!” I told her, my hand shaking under hers.

“Hey! Hey, shhh, it’s okay! They won’t be hard. Coran knows this is your first time. He’s nice, remember? They’ll be simple, like your favorite movie or something. No biggie, alright? Then all you have to do is walk off the stage and I’ll be right there waiting for you. Pinkie swear,” Misty said, holding her bedazzled little finger out.

I took a long breath, and let it out slow, hooking my finger with hers.

“…Okay.”

 

The line grew steadily shorter until Lance and I were the only ones left backstage. My heart was still thundering in my ribcage, and I still wanted to run back to the dressing room and hide before anything could go wrong, but Lance had kept his ever-present grip on my wrist the entire time.

The queen onstage was still in the question phase.

Lance gave my wrist one last squeeze before letting it go, only to place both of her hands on my shoulders and look me straight in the eyes instead.

“Listen, Keith, even if you don’t think you can do this, _I know_ you can,” she told me, voice hushed.

I tried not to look too disbelieving, but it wasn’t fooling her.

“And guess what, it doesn’t even matter if you don’t think so,” she said.

I raised an eyebrow, but she continued on. “It doesn’t matter because even if this is something _Keith_ can’t do, that doesn’t mean _Ming_ can’t.” Misty played with a lock of my hair, smoothing it down.

“Cause that’s the wonderful, marvelous thing about drag, sweetie. As long as you’re out there, you don’t have to be Keith Kogane. You can be whoever the fuck you want,” she said, as applause erupted outside.

Misty cleared her throat in preparation as she pulled back the last few feet it took to get to the curtain. “Ming is whoever you want her to be,” she told me as Coran called out her intro. “Just be cute, okay? Even Keith Kogane is good at that,” she said, winking before she disappeared through the curtains.


	4. "Knock-You-On-Your-Ass" Amethyst

I was expecting the time between when Misty was introduced and I was finally called out to take nanoseconds, but it ended up feeling like lifetimes instead. Misty’s voice trilled outside, sometimes bringing forth a few laughs, but always encouraging cheers.

I hung onto every word, like it might give me some clue as to how I should act out there.

And sure, “becoming Ming” sounded fine in theory, but I still had no clue what that even meant. It felt like I’d had eons just to get myself even more worked up when Coran’s voice changed from outro to intro one last time.

“Now, gentlefolks, we have one last treat for you this evening!” he called out. The crowd made a mixture of mildly displeased and excited whoops. 

 “I hope you will join me in giving a warm welcome to our newest addition, here for the very first time this evening… Flaye Ming!”

I swallowed hard.

_You could still just… run?_

 Instead, against every defensive mechanism in my body, I pulled apart the velvet material.

Spotlights instantly attacked my eyes, and I had to bat my eyelashes (unintentionally) a few times as I adjusted. Hopefully that came off as flirty or whatever.

Then there was another wave of applause as I began to make out faces near the stage. It took a second to really piece together that they were clapping for _me_. Well. Not _me-_ me really but-

“Hello Ming, darling! Don’t be shy, come on up!” Coran invited. I stepped further out onto the single long leg of the stage. _Should my heels really be clicking that much?_

“First question. Let’s say you’re in a candy shop and there’s a whole rack of… _lollies_ ,” Coran began, eliciting a few exaggerated groans/giggles from the patrons. “Which flavor are you picking?”

I took the final step forward to the vintage-style golden microphone, holding lightly onto the side with my bedazzled hands. _Should I… pose? Or…?_ I answered with the first thing that popped into my head, trying to focus on my voice.

“Um, cherry?” I said, quietly, but the uproar that followed told me the mic had no difficulty picking it up. There were wolf whistles and cat calls coming at me from every direction.

That should have made me feel more uncomfortable than I’d ever been in my life, but instead, something tricky welled up inside my chest and I did something entirely un-me-like.

“Oh shut up, you pervs,” I sassed, giving the crowd a dismissive wave.

My heart stopped.

 _I literally just called the entire body of patrons a bunch of perverts._ _Lance is going to kill me I-_

The entire club filled with raucous laughter and applause. I could barely believe it as my heart threatened to beat through my chest. Even Coran gave an entertained giggle into his own mic before starting in on the next question.

“Alright sweetheart, now, say you’re _on the prowl_ ,” and here once again a few customers cringed at Coran’s horrible choice of words, “What would you say you’re looking for in a partner?”

I blinked down at him for a moment.

“Well… that’s a trick question,” I eventually told him.

“How’s that?” Coran responded, an intrigued eyebrow raised.

“Have you seen all this? Come on. I’d never have to be _on the prowl_ in the first place.”

I had no idea where that answer (or the overwhelming confidence behind it) had even come from. If the reaction from the crowd was any indication, however, then maybe I was somehow doing better than I’d thought.

The rest of the introduction went by in a flash of wolf-whistles and whoops as I was finally invited to mingle amongst the crowd.

And then Misty was right in front of me, holding out her hand to help me down the steps with an impossibly bright smile plastered on her face. I had almost forgotten about the stilettos I was wearing.

She leaned forward to whisper excitedly in my ear. “Oh my god! Ming! That was the most perfect introduction I’ve ever seen, you did so great! I told you you’d be a natural,” she told me, and as she pulled away, biting her blue lips with enthusiasm, I tried to keep my voice from cracking.

“Thanks. That went… way better than I thought it would,” I told her. Misty gave me a wicked smirk. “Told you~” she sing-songed, keeping her grip on my hand as she led me through the crowd at a pace I could keep up with.

 

The bar was apparently Misty’s signature perch, and all of her clingiest followers were already gathered there. Honestly, I had been expecting a bunch of creeps, but some of them didn’t actually look half-bad. She recognized each one and called them all by name. I was impressed as I watched Misty flitter about, weaving different topics of conversation. Misty (and Lance) were obviously social creatures, but the way she balanced the small crowd, giving each their own equal amount of attention, took some major skill.

A skill I lacked almost entirely.

I had a hard time keeping up with the back and forth after a while and my head felt like it was going to spin right off my shoulders. It was overwhelming, and it seemed as if Ming was losing the little bit of edge she might’ve had. Somewhere in my brain I was idly aware that I was being asked questions, but thankfully Misty would come to the rescue each time with a quirky comeback or two.

“Aw, c’mon, let the new girl answer for herself, yeah?” some guy asked. Mike? Marcus?

“Well someone’s gotta protect this dollface. You heard her, you’re all pervs,” Misty stuck her tongue out playfully, latching onto me in a sideways hug. For the first time, I noticed the delicate sweet scent that clung to her like cinnamon sugar.

She was warm, and somewhere in the back of my mind I registered that this was Lance, and that this was the first time we’d been so close, and as that realization sunk in a violent blush spread up my cheeks to the point where I could feel it covering my ears.

I cleared my throat. “What was the question again?”

 

By the end of the night, Misty had somehow talked me up enough that some of the patrons were already happily looking forward to future performances that would never actually happen. I had to wonder for a brief moment if Misty hadn’t actually forgotten that the whole act wouldn’t be a long-term thing, and that I’d only be there for the night.

I shifted around as my heart sank slightly at the thought that Ming’s one and only appearance would be over soon. I wasn’t an actual queen. Ming’s whole existence was made up solely to help Misty out for a few hours.

We made our way backstage faster than I thought we would. We were the last queens to leave for the night, all the others had packed up shortly before closing. Misty, however, had insisted on staying behind to chat with Hunk and the bartenders, keeping them company as they cleaned up for the night. When they only had 20 minutes or so left with prep for the next day etc. Lance had dragged me down the hall to get out of costume.

I found myself standing in front of the same floor-to-ceiling mirror Lance had “introduced” me to Ming in. She was still there now, but different. Less frazzled, more secure.

It was still jarring, though.

Behind me, Lance coughed. “You know… tonight doesn’t have to be the end of her,” Lance said, as if he could see right through me.

He was seated in front of one of the heavily lit mirrors that lined the wall. He peeled Misty off piece by piece, starting with the shoes, then he had moved onto the wig.

“More like you’ve awakened a beast. I don’t know how you’ll be able to resist pulling her out again, honestly. I’ve never seen someone go from frightened boy to ferocious babe so fast,” he told me.

I huffed a laugh, “Bullshit.”

Lance glared at me with a pout, the effect warping slightly with his makeup halfway on and halfway off. “Hey, I’ve seen a lot of queens, okay? You literally had an _hour and a half_ to learn what most of us think about and practice doing for _years_ before we actually set foot on a stage,” he explained. “You’re a force to be reckoned with,” he finished, wagging a slender finger at me.

Despite the smeared makeup, Lance’s face changed to something serious for once, like he had actually taken the time to think before he spoke.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he admitted, almost sheepishly.

_He looks so cute when he’s blushing._

It took me a second to gather my thoughts enough to answer.

“Hmm… I guess I can let you be right this time. Don’t get used to it, though.”

Lance beamed before wiping off the end of his lipstick, “I’m going to write that down and have you sign it,” he laughed.

“Good luck with that,” I told him.

I decided the wig should come off first, figuring that maybe Lance was right about Ming. Being a queen wasn’t something I had ever considered, really, but it had been… unexpectedly fun.

As I took off the million different parts of my ensemble, I remembered that it had only been a month or two since I had first spoken to Lance. Which, at that moment in time, hit me as genuinely insane.

Lance was easy.

Lance was fun.

Lance… was maybe _too_ fun.

Lance had found his way into my inner circle without me even noticing.

My heart squeezed. No, Lance was just supposed to be flirty and aloof and this was never supposed to develop into anything at all. He was just some guy with pretty nails at the coffee shop.

“Hey,” Lance called, softly.

I turned around to see Lance beckoning me over to a stool beside him. Swallowing, I sat down more roughly than I’d meant to. Lance pulled a towelette from a plastic pouch and leaned in close, pressing one of his fingers to the spot in between my eyebrows.

“Stress isn’t a great look on you, yanno? What’s going on underneath that mullet?” he asked, all smirk.

He rubbed a tiny circle into my forehead and I forced my face muscles to relax slightly at the odd sensation. I blamed it on the layers of glue forcing my eyebrows down onto my skin.

A few seconds later he replaced his finger with the makeup wipe, dabbing gently below the hair that fell into my eyes. I finally got around to answering.

“Just… thinking about… boundaries?” I told him, though that wasn’t necessarily the whole truth. Lance didn’t look convinced as he gave me an incredulous stare from only a foot away. “If you’re alluding to personal space,” he said, gesturing to the small space between us, “I’d like to remind you that I literally helped you tuck your dick in just few hours ago. Boundaries be damned,” he said.

“ _That’s what I’m worried about_ ,” I mumbled underneath my breath, trying hard not to think about what might have been the single most embarrassing moment of my life.

Lance stopped for a second with a questioning glance but ultimately decided not to comment.

Then he was humming, some show tune I knew from somewhere but couldn’t quite remember. The third wipe or so made its way across my face as he finished up cleaning the top half and moved down past my nose. I eyed the spilled powder and miscellaneous stains covering the counter.

“Hey, Lance, why do you-”

“Ah-ah. Shhh.”

Lance placed a finger to my painted lips, followed quickly by the wipe. I tried to keep my breath under control and a straight face as it swiped over my lips a few times.

After a while, I couldn’t feel any leftover lipstick, but Lance insistently pinched my bottom lip between two of his fingers behind the cloth.

We had moved only inches away from each other.

My eyes shot up to his.

Lance _gasped_.

Then he pulled away like he’d been stung, clearing his throat and averting his gaze elsewhere, rushing the rest of the cleanup. After the fact, I looked in the mirror and noticed a few splotches of concealer left over, but didn’t say anything.

 

Group Chat – _‘Shut Your Fuck’_

_Hot Sprocket:_ HA!

 _Mom Friend:_ ?

 _The Fire Nation Attacked:_ What?

 _Hot Sprocket:_ Lover boy has been located

 _The Fire Nation Attacked:_ You talked to Lance??

 _Hot Sprocket:_ Club Volt, huh? When’s your next performance?

 _The Fire Nation Attacked:_ I hate you sometimes. And there will be no “next performance,” it was a one-time thing. You’ve missed your chance, you demon

 _Mom Friend:_ Sure, just like you unironically listening to Nickelback was a “one-time thing” as well

 _The Fire Nation Attacked:_ Correction- I hate both of you most of the time

 

I had been wearing my nails openly for an entire week or so, and only a few of my coworkers had blatantly stared. There were some strange looks shared and directed at me, but no one had said anything outright. It was the same way they’d treated me when they’d first found out I was gay, so it wasn’t as much of a blow as I thought it’d be. I had just done my work like it was any other day.

I’d just gotten done changing the oil in the car of some lady in a tight pencil skirt who looked short on time as well as patience. I handed over her receipt, hoping she’d take her bratty attitude elsewhere. She seemed reluctant as she grimaced toward the polish (still not perfect, but better than the first few attempts), and after finally taking the receipt, she stood around a second more with this put-off look.

“A mechanic with painted nails,” she tsked, “Never thought I’d see that. They really let your type work in here?” she asked.

For a fraction of a second I gaped at the bitch before my surprise turned into irritation.

“Yes. They do.” I spat. “Is that a problem?’” I asked, managing to keep the majority of the venom out of my voice, knowing my coworker at the other counter was listening to every word. She sniffed and shrugged one of her pointed shoulders.

“Well don’t get all riled up, I’m not prejudiced. I just thought that as a gay person or a transvestite or… whatever you’re making yourself out to be, it would be difficult to work in a place like this.”

I tried very hard to keep my teeth from grinding.

“I’m afraid not.”

 

When I was called into the boss’s office that Monday, I wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary. When he needed a specific job done he’d call us in, give us a rundown, and then it would be back to work.

When I walked in that day, the boss had asked me to shut the door.

I’d never even _seen_ his door closed before.

He motioned to the chair in front of his old, battered desk, and I took a seat, steeling myself with a slight grimace.

The boss cleared his throat. “Keith, there’s no easy way to put this to you… so I’m just gonna be outright with it,” he started, leaning back in an office chair that looked more like a La-Z-Boy, his belly popping out from his too-tight t-shirt.

“I’m sorry, but there’s not a job for you here anymore.”

 

Chat – _Lance_

_Keith:_ 2648 Hickory St., Apartment 304, 6:00, bring alcohol

 _Lance:_ I’m glad you remembered my work schedule and all but is this like a party or something?

 _Keith:_ I got fired.

 _Lance:_ Holy shit

 _Lance:_ Knock-you-on-your-ass proof vodka it is, then

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't get me wrong, I love fluff and slow burn and bless all that mess.  
> But.  
> I wanna get to the porn so badly my dudes.


	5. "Gonna-Have-A-Hangover" Heliotrope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did somebody scream "drunken antics?"

I opened the door and there stood Lance, a brown bag in one hand and a regular grocery bag in the other. He looked cautious, like he was expecting someone that had almost drowned in their tears and whatever alcohol they’d had stored up in their cabinet. I think I was accidentally glaring at him.

“Hey red hots. I come bearing gifts of booze and bread. And by bread I mean cake,” he smiled, trying to be unaffected by my mood, something not a lot of others could manage. Deep down I probably would have been impressed had it not been for the rage still running heatedly through my veins.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked, when I didn’t react much.

I cleared my throat and moved to the side so he could come inside. “I-”

“Cuz you look fiiiiiiine to me!” he joked, finger-gunning past me into my apartment.

I just stood there for a second, but as I ran a hand down my face I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“You have bad taste in men,” I told him. Lance gasped, whipping around as his bags slung outward from where they hung on his arms. “Excuse you! I’ll have you know that ‘brooding emo mullet boy’ is a very acceptable type to have,” he told me, winking.

Lance had only been in my apartment for maybe thirty seconds and already I felt like my mood had done a 180. He put his bags on my kitchen counter, the grocery bag settling down with a heavy thunk as a pack of strawberries fell out of the top. I raised an eyebrow as Lance pulled out a couple more ingredients.

I eyed the giant bottle of vodka sitting on the edge of the table for a bit too long apparently.

Lance snapped in my face a few times to get my attention, “Hey! There will be enough time for drinking and venting your sorrows later. Right now I’m going to force you to eat, however, because you’ll hate yourself in the morning if you drink on an empty stomach.”

I held back a pout and decided to be interested in the ingredients Lance was pulling out of the bag instead. He sat down a covered baking tray with something inside, the pack of strawberries, some vanilla icing, whipped cream, and some limes. Fifteen minutes later Lance was pulling whatever type of sweet it was back out of the oven where he’d been warming it back up. He cut up the limes and squeezed some fresh juice over the crumbly red pastry, then tossed on the icing, and lastly added some of the cut-up strawberries on top.

Dishing out a huge serving in a bowl, Lance topped the whole concoction off with some more lime and whipped cream. “For your dining pleasure zis evening,” Lance said, with an overdone fake French accent, “We have a strawberry-melon crumble bar wiz a touch of lime and _just a smidgen_ of sex appeal.”

“Is that even edible?” I asked, taking the bowl from him.

“Anything with sex appeal is edible if you can open your mouth wide enough,” Lance said, waggling his eyebrows.

 

With Lance’s antics, I had almost forgotten the reason I had invited him over in the first place, but after we both finished our massive bowls of what were now deemed “strawberry sex bars,” Lance poured us both glasses of vodka with sprite and pomegranate juice.

I swirled the drink in my hands as Lance flopped down on the couch beside me. “So which shop am I burning down?” he asked, turning toward me and leaning his right side up against the back of the couch as he brought his knees up. I sighed, taking a sip and coughing a little as it burned down my throat. “Gerald’s auto repair and lube,” I told him.

“Of course they fucked you over. They literally have ‘and lube’ in the title,” Lance joked.

I rolled my eyes, taking a larger drink. It went down easier that time, probably easier than it should have.

“Apparently my behavior the last few weeks has been ‘inappropriate’ for an auto shop,” I told him, scoffing. “I guess having painted nails makes me a bad mechanic after all.”

Lance’s face fell, “That’s why they fired you, _your fucking nails?_ What the hell??” he asked, face reddening with irritation before he let out a heavy sigh. I shrugged, “My coworker told my boss about how some lady didn’t appreciate my ‘attitude’ after she had told me she was surprised they let ‘ _my type’_ work there. So apparently I had become a ‘detriment to the business’ or something like that,” I told him.

Lance was fuming, but underneath there was some deeper emotion. “What assholes,” he said, eloquently, taking a large drink.

I nodded, almost through with my glass already, head just a little fuzzy. Lance’s mood took a dip over the course of only a few seconds as he squeezed my knee.

“I’m sorry,” he said, softly.

I sighed and leaned my head back against the couch, staring up at the ceiling, “It happens.”

I could see Lance shake his head in my peripheral vision, “Yeah but if I hadn’t pushed you to wear them at work this wouldn’t have happened. You had a bad feeling and I just-”

“Hey,” I said, nailing him with a look. “That’s not your fault. If I had really expected something like this to happen I wouldn’t have worn them anyways. You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” I told him. He smiled, even though he didn’t look entirely convinced as he took another sip.

 

We talked a bit longer about how I’d hated my coworkers anyway and how I’d been wanting a different job for ages. I still wasn’t happy about being fired but maybe it was for the best.

Lance had called an Uber after the heat of the conversation had died down and we were getting tired both from the lateness of the hour and the alcohol (we’d both had a couple glasses too many at that point).

“Now I’ve got to find a different job, though,” I lamented, groaning as I thought of having to go on another job hunt after almost five years. Lance bit at his lip, now done with his second glass.

“What if you came to work with me?” he asked.

I raised an eyebrow, “At Altea’s? I mean, if push comes to shove then _maybe_. But you’ve seen my resting face. I have the charisma of a wet towel. The service industry probably isn’t my best fit,” I told him.

Lance shook his head and scooted closer. “No, not at Altea’s. I meant at Club Volt,” he said.

I chuckled, “Nice joke. You just wanna see my ass in a corset again.”

“It’s not a joke!” Lance said, punching my shoulder. “I mean it, come be a queen with me. I bet I could get Coran to hire you in a flash! We’ve been looking for some new queens anyway, and you’ve already had your intro!” he explained excitedly.

“Wait…You’re serious?” I asked.

Lance nodded enthusiastically, “We could even be partners and do some routines together! C’mon, it’s not like you have anything else lined up yet,” he persuaded.

I scratched the back of my neck. “I’ll… think about it,” I told him.

Lance broke out a brilliant smile, leaping across the small space to wrap me up in a tight hug around my neck and shoulders. “Yaaaaas queen!” he laughed, pulling away after a second to grin at me and keeping a tight grip on my shoulders. “It’s going to be so great!” he exclaimed, reaching up to squish my cheeks. I chuckled as I pulled his offending hands away from my face.

We both realized in the same moment that 1.) Lance had hopped all the way up onto my lap, straddling my hips 2.) Our faces were mere inches from each other 3.) It would be a very awkward position to get out of.

I cleared my throat while Lance ran one of his hands anxiously through his hair.

“…I’m drunk,” Lance finally whispered, like he was trying to explain something to himself.

“M-hmm,” I hummed.

“You’re drunk too,” he added.

I nodded.

“Now’s probably not the best time to, ah…” he trailed off, cheeks tinted a bright pink.

“Yeah,” I said, but neither of us made any effort to move. Lance’s breath, smelling like pomegranate and vodka, brushed over my lips in hot puffs. Without thinking, my fingertips trailed up the side of Lance’s left thigh, before lightly coming to rest on his hip. Lance shivered, goosebumps raising up on his legs where his shorts didn’t cover his slender thighs.

He slipped his nails gently through the hair on the base of my neck. “My ride will be here soon,” he said softly, letting his right hand slide down from my neck to my chest.

“But they’re not here yet,” I said, tightening my grip on his waist possessively as my other hand repeated the same motion across his thigh. Lance’s breath hitched, and I couldn’t stop my thumbs from rubbing gentle circles into his hipbones through his shorts. “T-they’re not,” he confirmed.

Lance’s hands shyly made their way from my neck up to my face as his gaze would flick nervously in a cycle from my chest, to my lips, to my eyes. He brushed his thumb over my bottom lip lightly, like it’d disappear if he pressed too hard.

His forehead came to rest against mine as I let one hand slide up the front of his shirt a few inches, the skin there just as warm and soft as his hands, before letting the fabric fall back down and trailing my fingers up the curve of his spine to cup the back of his neck.

Lance trembled, lips ghosting over mine, letting out an almost imperceptibly small whine.

 I closed the distance between us in an instant, pressing my lips to his eagerly, like I’d never get the chance to taste them again. Lance pulled himself closer, his chest against mine. The kiss tasted like booze and bad decisions but in my alcohol-addled brain all I could think about was how much I’d been dying for it since the day I’d met him.

Lance opened his mouth, sliding his tongue against my bottom lip and curling his hand into my hair, pulling lightly. I groaned, letting him tilt my face upwards as I pushed the hand that still laid on his hip up the inside of his shirt. Lance keened as my hand ran up his smooth stomach, pulling up his shirt as I brought my other palm around to the small of his back, tugging him even closer. Lance visibly shuddered, and pulled back, eyes half-lidded as he was about to say something that I’d never get to hear.

His phone rang, loud and annoying.

Lance blinked out of his delirium as much as a half-hard drunken mess could and scrambled to get out of my lap. He picked up his phone, and pouted.

“R-ride’s here,” he said simply.

And, in my defense, I _was_ drunk.

So drunk me thought it was a great idea to hug Lance around the waist from where I sat on the couch. “Nope. They’re not,” I told him.

Above me I could hear Lance chuckle, “Never would’ve pegged you for the clingy drunk type,” he said.

I lifted my head to smirk lazily at him, “But you would’ve pegged me though, right?” I asked, winking. Probably with both eyes. Lance guffawed and tried to pry me off his middle. “Get off me, you horndog,” he said. I protested loudly as he pushed me back against the couch, surprisingly strong for a drunkard.

“Fiiiine,” I whined.

Lance gave me a soft smile as he picked up the leftovers on the counter and gathered up his miscellaneous items. He walked, or stumbled, over to me when he had everything together. “I’ll see you later?” he asked as I pushed myself off the couch to walk him to the door. “Oooor you could tell your driver to fuck off and stay here instead?” I tried, throwing an arm around his waist and kissing the back of his neck. Lance skittered away and covered his nape, blushing.

He smirked, “Tempting. But no,” he told me with finality as he opened the door. I let out a heavy sigh. “Fine, then,” I said, hanging in the doorway, “And thanks.”

Lance shifted the weight of his bags, “For what?”

I gestured wildly at my face, “For making my brooding emo bitch face go away.”

Lance snorted, “Aw but your brooding emo bitch face was so cute,” he told me.

I raised an eyebrow, “Is rambling, horny, unemployed drunk your type too? Because I know a guy…”

Lance doubled over with laughter, “Okay, that’s enough, I really need to go now,” he said, shaking his head at my antics. I stood up as straight as was possible in the state I was in, leaning against the doorway. My bangs fell into my eyes and I was sure I looked like a mess, but hopefully a hot one.

“Night, Lance,” I told him, stuffing my hands in my pockets. Lance smiled and stepped closer, pressing a light kiss to my cheek. “Night, hot stuff,” he said, heading off down the hallway as I stood stunned in my doorway.

 

It had been about a week since I’d been fired. I hadn’t seen Lance since that night, but that was normal for us. Probably for the best anyway since I had gotten… a little too handsy. Thinking about it made my cheeks burn red as I tried to focus on my job search.

It hadn’t been awkward over text or anything, so that was good, but that also might have just been because of Lance’s infinite knack for holding decent conversations. I was almost jealous. Almost. And speak of the devil, my phone pinged just as I stood up to pour myself another cup of coffee.

 

Chat- _Lance_

Lance: You free today?

Keith: Yeah I guess

Lance: ;)

Lance: Good, because you've got an interview tonight! 


	6. "Kicking-Some-Homophobe-Ass" Hot Pink

I pulled up into the back lot of Club Volt around 2:00, dressed in slacks and a button-down, hoping that was appropriate attire for interviewing as a drag queen.

Not like I owned much else anyway.

I rapped at the back door a few times after I had texted Lance I was there, looking down at the whole line of cigarette filters lining the back wall and grimacing. When the door opened, I was surprised to see the queen I’d met last time, Annie, standing in the door instead of Lance.

He raised an eyebrow, still immaculately dressed, but in a pair of nice, form-fitting jeans and a lavender v-neck shirt this time. “Wait… you’re that little Asian piece Lance brought in a while back. Ming, right?” he asked. I furrowed my eyebrows at the shitty label but was shocked he remembered me despite all the makeup.

I nodded, “Lotor, right?” I asked him. He smiled, “You looking for Lance? He’s already here, even though his slot isn’t until later tonight,” he told me. I nodded my head, “Uh, yes and no. I’m actually here for an interview,” I told him. His eyebrows raised, “Wait, wasn’t that last show your first time performing?” he asked. I sighed, “It’s under extenuating circumstances, believe me,” I told him.

“Keith!” I heard Lance call as he jogged down the hallway to meet us.

“…Lotor,” he greeted somewhat coldly as he reached us. I decided I’d ask later. Or never.

Lotor smirked, “Using your favor to hand out jobs now, Misty?” he asked.

Lance bristled. “You know it’s not like that. Excuse me for trying to help a friend when I have the ability,” he bit out.

The taller man raised his hands in surrender, “Calm down, pussycat. Put up your claws,” he defended. “Besides, he did well for a first-timer. If you’re going to use that influence of yours it might as well be to get a fresh face in here, considering…” he trailed off, sending a strange glance my way before a ringtone pierced the quiet.

Lance huffed as Lotor checked his phone. “Allura wants to speak with me. Probably something about that new club, ‘Quintessence’ or whatever it was called. Don’t get too caught up with your new _friend_ that you forget your own show, Rios,” he said. Lance glared at the other queen, but before he could say anything, Lotor turned to me. “And good luck with the interview, sweetheart. Doubt you’ll need it though,” he said, winking as he eyed me up and down.

Lance bumped him a foot down the hallway with his hip, “Don’t keep Allura waiting, _Lingus_.”

Lotor grimaced as he pushed his long white hair back into its proper place, spinning on his heel and exiting down the hall. Lance smirked, “I love when I get the last word in with him.”

“Doesn’t seem like you two get along much,” I told him. It was no secret that emotions weren’t exactly my forte, but anyone could tell that if someone had forced those two into the same room alone together only one of them would have come back out.

Lance rolled his eyes, “Lotor’s a snake, believe me. He’ll act like your friend just to use you until he can find someone better,” he told me, his eyes betraying a longer story that I wasn’t being told, but I wasn’t going to pry, especially when I was still freaking out about the meeting he’d set up on such short notice.

“So,” Lance clapped his hands together, “Your interview is going to be a little different from usual,” he told me, leading us down the hallway. “Normally we have a queen do a dress performance and if Coran thinks she fits, she’s in. But you haven’t ever really been a full-on drag queen before, so we hatched this plan that’s more like a paid trial-run,” he told me, leading me into a back room filled with feathery and sequined props in organized bins. He closed the door behind us.

“The only reason Coran’s even thinking about it is because I convinced him we could train you into the ideal queen for the club. He’s generous… but that doesn’t mean he’s going to let you off easy,” Lance told me. I nodded, trying not to stare at the _three_ separate boxes labeled “Nipple Tassels”.

“So you’re going to go in there, he’s going to decide what kind of a person you are, figure out he loves you, and if he gives you the job- which I have a feeling he will, Ming really impressed him last time- then you’ll have four months to prove yourself worthy enough to be in a routine.”

I nodded, blowing a freed feather away from my face. He smiled sheepishly, “During those four months you’ll only be making a little over minimum wage. Sorry, I know that’s not ideal, but I couldn’t really talk Coran out of that part,” he told me, rubbing nervously at the back of his neck.

I shrugged, “Better than what I’m making now,” I told him.

Lance let out a sigh, “Guess that’s true, but still…”

I shook my head, “I appreciate the foot in the door, anyway. I already owe you big time,” I told him. Lance clicked his tongue, “If you say so. Now,” he smirked, pulling two small tubes out of his back pocket. “Let’s get you pretty,” he said conspiratorially, as he approached my perch on the wall.

“I thought you said I wouldn’t need to dress up?” I asked him.

Lance rolled his eyes, “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you need to look so full-on _straight_ ,” he teased. “Besides, it’s just some mascara and lip gloss. If you’ve got it, flaunt it, and all that,” he said, waving his hand to dismiss the thought as he twisted the top off the mascara and pumped it a few times. I glared at the offending wand, that thing had almost poked my eye out last time. Makeup was so _itchy and annoying_ -

“And you’ve got eyelashes for _days_ , you know? I almost considered leaving the falsies off last time but… well it wouldn’t be drag if it wasn’t over the top,” Lance shrugged, gently manipulating my face to do what he wanted the same way he’d done my makeup last time. Careful not to move my face too much, I replied, “I would have preferred them off.”

Lance gave a quick slap to my upper arm. “Nonsense!” he cried, “If you’re going to be a queen we’ve got to get you over this aversion to makeup,” he told me. “Moreover, you’re going to have to learn how to do stage makeup in _four months flat_. That’s the real challenge,” he told me.

“Can’t you just keep doing it for me? You seem to like it well enough,” I asked. Lance huffed a sigh, “I might do your contour _every once in a while_ if you bring me food,” he told me, winking. I pulled on an exaggerated pout, “I’ll only be making _slightly above minimum wage_ though,” I told him, earning an elbow to my ribs this time. “Fine. I _guess_ I’ll let you have a few freebies until we’ve made you into a proper lady,” Lance conceded.

I grinned, “Uh-huh, because Misty’s such a ‘proper lady’ too,” I told him.

Lance rolled his eyes, “Just because Misty’s a slut doesn’t mean Ming should be,” he said.

I accidentally laughed harder than I should have, forcing the mascara wand up my eyelid. Lance let out a groan, “Knew better than to make you laugh,” he said, licking the pad of his thumb and telling me to close my eyes. “Now sit still.”

 

By the time he had my eyelashes and lips coated at least twice, he led me down the hallway to what I assumed was Coran’s office.

“Now just be yourself, Coran already thinks you’re a pretty good person because of how you helped us out earlier, and I’ve talked you up enough that you’re basically a shoe-in,” Lance told me, straightening invisible lines in my shirt. “Just channel your inner Ming… but maybe minus half the sass,” he amended.

I smirked, despite my nerves, “Just half-sassed?”

Lance glowered, “The worst part is I can’t tell if you actually intended for that to be a joke or not.”

I laughed but gave him no answer as he knocked on the door for me. My laughter died down quickly after that as I plastered on what I hoped was a professional-looking face rather than my usual annoyed-looking face.

“Right!” A voice came from inside, as if remembering something. “Come in!” it yelled.

I wiped my sweaty palms on my slacks before turning the handle and walking inside. Lance gave me a final thumbs-up from behind the wall where Coran couldn’t see as he closed the door gently behind me.

Whatever I had been expecting a burlesque drag club owner’s office to look like, Coran had flipped that vision upside-down.

The small space looked nothing like the rest of the club. The walls were a pristine white, as were most of the supplies and the computer on his desk. Very modern/minimalist compared to the vintage flair of the bar and stage.

“Welcome back, Keith! Take a seat,” he told me, pushing some papers into a folder on the side of his desk and folding his hands carefully on top of it. I nodded, sitting down in a white desk chair across from Coran. It sank down some, forcing me to have to look up at him somewhat awkwardly.

The man grinned gently, “Lever on the right, below the seat,” he told me. I repressed a sigh as I went to raise up the seat with said lever. With the chair at its newly acceptable height, Coran cleared his throat.

“Before we dig in, I’d like to thank you for your help with the meet-and-greet. If I’m being honest, I was quite skeptical when Lance brought up the idea at first, but you really did end up making a splash!”

I smiled politely, “I’m glad you thought so. Lance had me convinced I was going to fall right off the stage,” I told him.

Coran chuckled, leaning back in his seat, but then he was right back to business. “That being said, I’d be glad to hear out your particular predicament, but I cannot guarantee you a job just yet,” he told me.

I nodded, “That’s understandable. Lance gave me a general rundown of what could happen, but really I’m just grateful for the opportunity,” I told him. Coran smiled, then raised an eyebrow, “So. Tell me about the termination of your last job,” he said, not commanding, but I still felt my defenses rise slightly at the request.

I coughed lightly.

“Well, long story short, I started painting my nails.”

 

By the end of my story, Coran looked ready not only to give me a job but the entire world. I hadn’t even laid it on thick, but the man was dabbing at his eyes with a pristine handkerchief, bemoaning the struggles of the LGBTQ community and the tax on the freedom of expression. All very poetic, I felt like he was more affected by my firing than I had been.

It was a “resounding yes” after a few more questions and I found myself with a post-it note stuck to my hand with the date and time of my first lesson in drag as I left the office. Opening the door, I found Lance still stuck to the wall with a quizzical look. After I closed the door he practically pounced on me. “So??” he asked, drumming his palms on my shoulders. I smirked and held up my post-it.

“YES! Yesyesyesyesyes! Aaaaaaah! I’m so excited!” he squealed, wrapping me into a tight hug immediately as he squirmed and swung us side to side. “I! Can’t! Wait! To! Teach! You!” he punctuated with every step we took back and forth.

I laughed, “You’d think _you_ were the one that just got the job,” I told him. Lance grinned as he finally let me free from the hug, “Well _someone’s_ got to express your emotions,” he told me, smirking as he smacked my shoulder blade, walking down the hallway again. “We should celebrate!’ he quickly continued, biting his lip in a mischievous way.

I scoffed, “What were you thinking?”

 

Terra Stella, 7:00, take an Uber, wear something nice

Those were the instructions I was given for… dinner apparently. The restaurant seemed unassuming at first, but was far from it when a waiter greeted me at the door. I was led inside to find Lance in the anteroom, lined with white marble and large golden frames holding original still-life paintings.

It was hard to take all that in, however, when Lance had made a point of looking far more interesting than the decor around him. He was dressed in a long, midnight blue form-fitting dress with a sloping back. The fabric had small, almost imperceptible stitches depicting constellations, but if you weren’t looking closely enough you’d think they were just sparkles.

“My eyes are up here, hot stuff.”

I snapped my eyes up to Lance’s face, which was painted with a sly smirk.

“Guess they are,” I replied, dumbly.

Thankfully Lance snickered, a toned-down version of his usual booming laugh in exchange for a more publicly acceptable chortle. “C’mon, you idiot, let’s go eat some grotesquely overpriced food at the expense of my nemesis.”

Lance approached the front desk and we were immediately escorted to a table with far too much silverware available. I just tried not to embarrass myself by falling out of my seat or something, putting on a face that probably looked disappointed but was actually just me trying to not look intimidated by a _fork_.

“Lotor owed me a favor,” Lance said, his mouth tilted up far too smugly. The waiter had gotten us settled in and we’d both been given some small rolls of fancy-looking rye bread and some sort of liquidy sauce to dip it in while we looked over the brief menu with only two courses offered.

The only words I could read were “lobster” and “steak,” which thankfully seemed to be the different choices for the main course. The rest was in French… or some of the options might have actually been in English that was just way over my head.

It was easier to assume French. I pulled at my tie.

I wasn’t exactly comfortable but I tried to not look put-off by the stiff air of the place.

When I looked back up from my menu, Lance had already set his aside and was working on a bite of his roll, licking some of whatever that sauce was off his lips. He somehow managed to do so without disturbing his maroon lipstick. Catching myself staring again, I looked away before he could catch me, shifting in my seat.

“You look like you know what you’re doing,” I commented.

Lance raised an eyebrow, “Really?” he asked, “This is actually my first time at this kind of place,” he told me. “Honestly the food had better be tremendous to make up for the uh… ambiance,” he said, waving to the almost dead silent room. I couldn’t help but snort, “Yeah. When I pictured _your_ version of a celebration, I admit, this wasn’t exactly where my mind went.”

Lance huffed good-naturedly, “I’ll have you know that I’m a real high-class lady, thank you very much.”

I scoffed, “You tell all your customers that?”

He gasped, then snorted, “That’s so mean!” he exclaimed.

 

“Ahem! Waiter!” a man at the table nearest ours suddenly called across the room, to where the waiter was pouring a glass of wine for some lady in a white dress. After he finished, he politely approached the man. “Yes sir?”

“I’d like to switch tables please.”

Lance and I watched as the waiter sent the briefest of glances our way. My mouth moved before my mind. Like always.

“Is there a problem?” I asked. Lance swiped his head to look from me, to the man, and back to me by the time the man could give me a sour, borderline disgusted look.

“Of course, sir, we have a table available in the other room if you would prefer-”

“We’d like to pay for his meal!” Lance blurted out, interrupting the waiter. Now it was my turn to be surprised.

“ _What?_ ”

Lance gave me a look before continuing. “Please, just put it on our card,” he said, to which the man glowered and was about to speak when Lance stood up, his chair scraping backwards.

“Maybe that way you’ll remember not to judge so much at first glance. We belong here, just as much as you do. The only difference is that we didn’t mind sitting next to a bigoted, homophobic asshole,” Lance concluded, pushing his chair back in while patrons from other tables looked on with intrigue.

I blinked as Lance looked back at me, the other man as well as the waiter left speechless. “C’mon, Keith, let’s go waste Lotor’s money somewhere less stuffy,” he said, holding his hand out toward me. I took it and was in some sort of daze as Lance led us past the front desk where he paid for the bread and the man’s meal and we left.

The valet was bringing Lance’s rental car around before I had collected myself enough to say something, but as I sucked in a breath to do just that, Lance placed a quick finger to my lips.

“That was awful!” he said, “I promise I’m actually way better at celebrating things than that.”

Lance’s brow furrowed and his voice wavered a bit as he continued, “Sorry, I should’ve known this place might not be the- um!”

I had taken hold of the finger still pressed to my lips and had flattened out his palm, pressing a light kiss there. I’d never heard Lance shut up quite so fast.

Becoming hyper-aware of his hand still in mine, I gave it a squeeze and cleared my throat, feeling blood rush up into my face as I pointedly watched Lance’s Uber pull up. “That was… probably one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen someone do,” I told him, quietly. “So don’t apologize. Let’s just go somewhere we can actually talk, okay?”

When Lance didn’t answer, I looked up to find his cheeks tinted about the same shade as my nails. He nodded lightly, a small smile playing on his lips as he avoided my eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE SEASON 5 TRAILER IS GIVING ME A N X I E T Y .  
> (wtf is the countdown about? I'm dying???)


	7. "Mr. Fahrenheit" Fuchsia

We ended up at some nightclub Lance knew of across town, still wearing our out-of-place clothing. The first thing we did was buy a round of shots, downing them after a small toast to “not letting shitbag homophobes have their way.” Then Lance bought me a proper drink as a celebratory gift, with which we toasted to Ming. Then another round of shots…

“C’mooon Keith, dance with me!” Lance was pulling on my arm while I was stubbornly clinging to the bar.

“Not here! There’s too many people, we’ll get crushed,” I told him.

Lance pouted as he decided to hang off my arm instead. “What about if it was somewhere not-here?” he asked, a small hiccup tacked onto the end.

I raised an eyebrow, “I guess?”

Lance grinned and pulled me out of the club, seeming to know where he was going. We stumbled and laughed as each of us tripped over our own feet a few times. Then I recognized the street we were on and soon we were in front of Altea’s. Lance dragged me down the alley to the back entrance, where he pulled out a key and let himself in, disarming the alarm system right after. He only flicked on one light, so it was still dark, but we could see through the labyrinth of tables. The chairs were all stacked up on top of them and all the blinds were closed, looking completely different from how it usually was during the day.

“Are you sure this is what your work keys are supposed to be used for?” I asked him. Lance waggled his eyebrows, “Nope,” he said, popping the P, “But… I have a feeling Allura will let me get away with it,” he said.

I didn’t question it.

“Besides,” he continued, “I’ve always wanted to see what the sound system in here sounds like at its full potential!” he told me, skipping over to a small music station in the corner behind the counter.

He hooked his phone up to it and pressed play, setting his phone down as he waited for the song to start. Turning around, he gave me the cheesiest grin, and then-

“Tonight~ I’m gonna have myseeeelf a real good time~”

I couldn’t help but let a laugh escape me that echoed throughout the shop as Lance lip-synced haughtily from behind the counter. “I feel alii-i-i-iiiive! And the woooooorld~” he sang, rolling himself clumsily over the counter with a dramatic flourish. “I’ll turn it inside out! Yeah~ And floating arooound~”

Lance stumbled over to me, grinning like an idiot. “In ecstasy~” he sang, propping himself on my shoulder as he had stumbled, I caught him by the hip.

“So don’t- stop- me- nooooow~” he sang, goofily tapping the tip of my nose with each word.

“Don’t stop me-” Lance pulled back and took both of his hands in mine. “Cause I’m havin’ a good time, havin’ a good time!” we sang, Lance swinging his hands back and forth with mine in a stupid dance.

We both sang loud and ugly as the song got to the good bits, trying to dance together in a weird drunk shuffle that, in our state, felt as complicated as a waltz. “I’m burning through the sky, yeah! 200 degrees- that’s why they call me Mr. Fahrenheeeeeit!” Lance twirled himself, the stars on his dress spinning out and the shine bouncing around on the dim walls. “I’m traveling at the speed of liiiiight!”

“I WANNA MAKE A SUPERSONIC MAN OUTTA YOU!” we shouted, each of us pointing exaggeratedly at the other. Lance grabbed my hands again and we ended up just spinning in a circle trying not to hit any tables as we got to the chorus. If I had been in my right mind, I might have been worried about someone calling the cops on us, but in that moment all I could think about was the way the sparkles from Lance’s dress seemed to fall into his eyes and just stay there like something out of a trashy 80s romance novel. But he still managed to make that happen and work somehow because it was _Lance_.

 “I’m a rocket ship on my way to Maaaars! -on a collision course- I am a satellite! I’m out of control!”

Lance managed to twirl himself while still holding onto my hand but he just bumped into me at the end, almost sending us both tumbling.

“I am a sex machine ready to reloooooad~ Like an atom bomb!” we sang, Lance still clinging for balance against my chest. “About to Oh~Oh~Oooh~Oh~OH~”

“EXPLOOOOODE!!!”

Lance only managed to sing one or two words out of each phrase after that because he was laughing so hard, even snorting a few times. Eventually we had to stop singing altogether because then we were _laughing over his laugh_ and that only made it even harder for him to _stop laughing._

We crashed and fell onto a plush booth, Lance falling half into my lap as the song continued on.

He wrapped his arms around my neck, swinging his legs over mine as he made a place for his head against my shoulder, still chuckling madly. I wrapped an arm around his waist to make sure he didn’t slip off and fall under the table. The velvety material of the dress felt good under my palms, and I stroked it a bit, giving Lance a back rub in the process. He hummed to the song as he calmed down and nuzzled his face giddily into the crook of my neck. “You smell nice,” he said.

“I like your dress,” I told him as he peeked out from under my chin. He smiled, “It’s pretty, huh? Bought it just for you~” he sing-songed, tapping his feet against the seat of the booth. My heart sped up at that. “For me?” I asked. Lance nodded happily, “You were an astronomy major,” he explained, “I’m not sure the constellations are right, but it still got the idea across.”

I looked down at the skirt of the dress, trying to make sense of the fabric’s twists and turns. “It’s a repeating pattern, so the positions aren’t exactly right, but the shapes are,” I told him eventually, pointing at one that laid against his thigh. “This one’s Pegasus,” I told him, tracing out the stars with my fingers. Lance giggled and pointed to a different spot on his dress, “And this one?” I had to tilt my head to get a good view, straightening out the fabric there, “That’s Cassiopeia,” I told him.

This continued until the song had ended as we worked our way through the star map of his dress. Lance pointed out another one, “What about here?” he asked. I traced my fingertips around the stitching, “That’s Leo,” I said, resting my hand against the soft material, only then realizing that Leo was sitting right above his heart, which was beating out of control into my palm.

I looked back up and met Lance’s eyes. He licked his lips as he grabbed my hand and slid it to a new constellation lower on his abdomen. “This one?” he asked softly, not letting go of my hand. I looked down just long enough to see. “Lacerta,” I told him. Again, lower.

“And here?”

“Auriga.”

To his hip.

“This one?”

I swallowed, “Andromeda.”

His hand stopped for a moment as he sat up, slowly and deliberately moving his legs to settle on either side of my hips.

Lance took hold of my hand again, sliding it even lower, to where the fabric of his dress was pulled taught against his growing erection. “…Here?” he whispered, his lips inches from mine, shivering as my fingertips brushed over him. I pulled in a deep breath, bringing my lips to ghost across his. “Scorpius,” I told him.

Lance’s breath hitched, “I think that one’s my favorite.”

“Me too,” I said, pressing my lips gently to his. Our lips moved together slowly, languidly, like we had entire years to memorize the feeling. Lance gasped when I lightly traced out the pattern of the stitches over Scorpius. I breathed in the noise as I deepened the kiss, slotting my lips against his, feeling the way his hips swayed as I stopped tracing and started palming him through the fabric.

Lance whimpered, bringing one of his hands to the back of my neck as the other dragged me in deeper by my tie. Lance explored my mouth with his tongue, sending a shiver through me as he lightly trailed the tip down the ridges of my palate. My mind went fuzzy, everything zeroed in on those perfectly soft lips. Lance popped off and licked them, trailing a finger down my torso.

“ _I want you_ ,” he breathed, kissing my jaw and nipping down the side of my neck.

His hand curled into my hair, tugging slightly. I tilted my head up and groaned as he continued to make his way across my skin. Lance let his other hand roam to the knot of my tie, slipping it down with the hiss of silk winding against itself and tossing it somewhere behind us.

I rubbed against him again before sliding my hand down to the edge of his skirt, pulling it up as the soft material bunched against the smooth skin of his legs. I grabbed one of his thighs, squeezing as Lance whined, rolling his hips and silently begging for attention elsewhere. I slipped my hand under his skirt, reaching upwards until my fingers found what he wanted.

His underwear was silky, and knowing him, most likely the same midnight blue color as the dress. I rubbed against him as he made soft noises around my lips. His legs were covered in goosebumps and he delicately ground his hips up into my palm.

Then without warning he broke away from the kiss, gasping.

“We can’t fuck in here!” he told me, panicked.

I blinked before growling in frustration, “We’ll clean up,” I told him, playing with the lacey waistband of his panties and biting down on one of his exposed collarbones. Lance shook his head even as he let out a desperate noise, “No, I mean there- _Mmm_ … T-there’s a futon in the break room, and n-no cameras,” he stuttered out. I paused before humming my assent.

“Through that door?” I asked, angling my head toward the space behind the counter. Lance nodded. “Okay.”

Lance squealed and flailed a bit as I lifted him up, pulling us out of the booth and walking toward the back room. When Lance calmed down, he took the opportunity to unbutton my collar and a few more buttons down. He still worked on my neck all the while, dragging his teeth down from my jaw.

Throwing him over my shoulder, I opened the door to the breakroom. Lance laughed, slapping my ass playfully before I sat him down on the table in the center of the room.

I pulled away from him and made quick work of folding the sofa down into a bed. Turning around, I found Lance staring at me and the way I had been bent over.

“Nice view,” he said, a salacious grin slowly spreading across his lips.

Lance let his fingers travel to pull the edge of his skirt up, tantalizingly slow as he revealed more and more of those gorgeous tan legs.

“ _Fuck_.”

I crossed back over to him in two quick strides, grabbing onto his thighs and pulling them apart.

“H-holy shit.”

Lance shuddered and quickly went back to the sloppy work of unbuttoning my shirt as I stepped in between his legs, working circles with my thumbs into his inner thighs, getting close to where he wanted, but never quite there. I delighted in the little tremble it caused each time, the fumbling of his fingers.

Lance let out a long groan, “Dammit stop _teasing_ ,” he whined, trying to scoot his hips closer to mine. I just drew back, pulling the fabric of his skirt even higher around his waist until I finally caught a view of what was underneath.

Lance’s underwear was even nicer to look at than it had been to touch, his erection framed perfectly by thin silk and lace, barely even held in anymore as Lance’s tip stuck out of the waistband. I groaned at the sight, running both of my hands up his thighs, across the sides of the fabric, and up to his stomach, making the circuit a few times as I enjoyed the view and the way Lance had started squirming underneath it. I kissed his temple, leaning over to whisper in his ear, “You’re so pretty like this.”

Lance let out a shaky breath, his stomach trembling beneath my hands. “So nice, all spread out and gorgeous for me.” I let my thumb lightly trace up the front of his erection, feeling the glide of the silk. Lance moaned at having my attention where he needed it.

“Did you buy these for me too?” I asked him, kissing down his neck. Lance nodded lightly, panting above me. I stood back up and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “What a _good boy_ ,” I told him, earning another shiver from him.

“What were you thinking of when you bought them?” I asked, plucking at the waistband, pulling it down just an inch or two. Lance’s hips bucked up, begging to be released from the confines of the silk. “Were you thinking about how you’d want me to have you? Were you planning to take me back to your place after dinner?” I asked him.

Lance’s breath caught before he managed to get out, “Mmm…I was t-thinking about maybe getting a hotel room…” he told me, gripping onto my shoulders. I chuckled, “Penthouse suite with Lotor’s money?” I asked. Lance bit his lip and nodded as I pulled the panties down to his knees. He gave a relieved sigh as I dragged them the rest of the way down his legs, past the heels he was still wearing.

I got down on my knees and unbuckled each of them, kissing his ankles as the shoes fell to the floor, rhinestones making a clink against the tile. I nuzzled against his calf, kissing up to the inside of his knee. “I love your legs,” I told him.

Lance chuckled, “Yeah? How much you wanna bet you’d love them even more around your waist?” he asked. I didn’t even have to look to know his eyebrows were doing _the thing_.

I rolled my eyes and bit harshly at his inner thigh. “I don’t know,” I told him, “They already look nice slung over my shoulders like this.”

Lance let out a whine as a fresh wave of goosebumps took over more of his skin.

I licked a stripe upwards until the edge of his skirt brushed my forehead. Lance’s breath stuttered as he tried to decide whether to close his legs or push his hips forward. I chose for him, wrapping my arms underneath his legs and reaching back, dragging his ass forward across the table. His top half fell back onto his elbows, trying not to fall completely off the edge. I scrunched up the material of his dress and pushed it forward, towards his mouth.

“Hold that for me, baby.”

Lance gently bit at the fabric, looking like a wet dream come to life. I leaned down, keeping eye contact with him as I took him into my hand again, placing a kiss against his tip. Lance moaned loud and long against the fabric. Without warning, I swallowed him down as far as I could, swirling my tongue around him. Lance’s head tilted back as a gasp rippled through him, his legs trembling and hips shifting forward.

I popped off before licking down the rest of him, twisting his base in my hand while I got him nice and wet. Lance was making sweet little gasps and moans around the fabric as I lightly ran my fingertips over his perineum before swallowing him down again, this time burying my face all the way to where there would normally be soft tufts of hair, but Lance kept himself smooth because of Misty.

One of Lance’s hands shakily found its way into my hair, tugging gently. I groaned around him as he hit the back of my throat. His hips gave weak pushes into my mouth, like he was afraid to do more than that. I reached a hand around to grab at his ass, scratching and groping at the soft skin there. Lance was panting above me, and as I looked up again I could see how he only barely had a hold on the fabric between his lips anymore.

I bobbed my head up and down a few times, flicking my tongue over his slit, tasting the precum beginning to dribble out. Lance’s legs tightened around my shoulders and his nails scraped though my hair. Teasing him with a few more licks and gropes, I pulled his hips forward and buried him down my throat, swallowing around him.

He was a _screamer_.

The fabric dropped out of his mouth and landed on my face as he cried out my name. I could feel his calves tensing on my shoulders and his toes curling on my back. I pulled off, clicking my tongue.

“Really, that was all the longer you could take?” I reprimanded gently.

My voice came out raspier than I expected it to. Lance looked absolutely wrecked. One of the shoulder straps of his dress had fallen down, cheeks flushed and eyes watering. He swallowed and panted, “S-sorry, I… I’m…!”

“Shhhh…” I told him, standing back up to press soothing kisses into his neck, “It’s okay, I got you,” I told him, rubbing circles into his hips, still covered by the edge of the dress. I took advantage of his sleeve slipping to nip at his shoulder and collarbone, “Gonna take such good care of you, sweetheart. Bring you apart piece by piece. Have you _begging_ for it. You want that?”

Lance practically sobbed, tangling both of his hands into my hair as he wound his long legs around my waist. “ _Please!_ Please, Keith, please,” he choked out,

I smiled, tugging at the fabric of the skirt. “Arms up,” I told him.

Lance didn’t hesitate as I pulled the dress up and over his head, throwing it onto the table beside us. As soon as he was free of it, Lance was back on me in a millisecond, breathing hot against my neck as he kissed every inch he could get his mouth on. “Your turn,” he mumbled, tugging on the bottom of my undershirt.

I tossed my nicer shirt on top of Lance’s dress, then pulled off the undershirt, letting it fall somewhere. While all this was going on Lance had managed to fumble enough with my belt to get it off somehow, though I had a feeling there would be scratch marks on it when I looked the next day. While I pulled my pants and underwear off, Lance had taken up the job of kissing down my chest and abdomen, feeling me up in the process.

Once the pants were gone he popped off to stare down at me unashamed. He licked his lips, “ _Fuck_. I knew you were hung when I taught you to tuck but _damn_ \- I need you in me like two weeks ago.”

I growled, picking him up and walking us the few feet to the futon, letting him fall open onto the soft mattress below. His knees were spread, arms up and framing his face. I crawled over him, latching onto a nipple and flicking the other as Lance let out little noises of want, bucking his hips up into nothing. “Keith c’moooon!” he whined, full-out pouting as I refused to touch him. I gave his chest a break, leaning up to bite at his earlobe. “Such a _needy_ little slut, aren’t you?” I asked.

Lance gasped and shivered, squirming as I pinned down both of his wrists with one hand. I dragged my fingertips down his torso, feather light as his breath caught and he pushed up into the touch. Lance’s nails scratched at my wrist still holding his hands.

His pupils were blown wide, eyes at half-mast as a sultry smirk made its way across his lips, “Never thought Keith Kogane would be _su-!_ such a dirty talker~” he teased, though it fell flat as his voice cracked. I rolled my eyes, “Well I’m not the one who moans every time I hear it, am I?” I asked him.

Lance huffed indignantly, his mouth opening and closing as he looked for a comeback. “Well… well I’m not the one that, uh, the one that gets his rocks off shaming others,” he said. I huffed a laugh, “Doesn’t that just mean being shamed turns you on though?” I asked.

The man below me floundered as he looked for a good excuse but just settled on, “Fuck you, Kogane.”

I raised an eyebrow, “Really? I thought this was going a different direction,” I told him, catching him off-guard by slipping my hand down between his legs, rubbing a finger against his rim.

Lance made a very cute squeak as he tried to hide his face between his shoulder and arm. I let go of his wrists and slid down the bed, lifting his hips up so he was almost upside down, resting his shoulders on the bed. Lance looked at me like a man depraved, holding back a whine as I brought my face down to tease at his entrance.

His entire body trembled as he exhaled, relaxed yet wound so tight at the same time. I traced my tongue around his rim, slowly, making Lance shift impatiently. Finally breaching the tight ring of muscle, I reveled in the way Lance’s hips moved, pushing himself toward me as much as he could.

“Ooooooh my god,” Lance moaned. I chuckled as I continued opening him up on my tongue, eventually adding a finger. I hissed at the sight, “Shit, you’re so fucking _tight_ …”

Once I had worked in a good three fingers, Lance was clawing at my thighs. “Dammit Keith, hurry up! I’m ready,” Lance said, pouting breathlessly as I scissored my fingers inside of him, running my tongue around his edge still.

“You sure?” I asked, already knowing what the answer was. I had taken my sweet time getting him nice and open, there was no way there’d be a problem. But as Lance was discovering, I had a thing for teasing.

“ _Yes!_ ” Lance insisted, “Please Keith, _Aa-Aaaah!_ Please just do it,” he begged.

As much as I loved keeping the torturously slow pace for Lance, I was nearing my limit too. “Do what, exactly?” I asked, thrusting my fingers in and out of him a few times. Lance looked as if he were on the verge of tears, “You know…” he said, surprisingly shy compared to his usual bravado.

I shook my head, wrapping one of my hands around his member and giving him a firm stroke. “I guess I don’t know, you have to tell me,” I said. Lance keened, head rolling back against the sheets. After a few labored breaths he panted out, “Dammit! _Fuck me_ , Keith, please! I’ve been _good_ haven’t I?”

Lance looked up at me with hooded eyes and an airy smile and that was it.

I pulled my fingers out of him and let his hips fall back onto the bed. “Sit up,” I told him. He did so, albeit a little slowly. I ran a finger across the edge of his jaw, making him look up at me as I stood on my knees. “Get me nice and wet and you can have what you want,” I told him.

The brunette’s eyes went wide and he wasted no time settling himself into position. He looked hungry as he eyed my cock, taking a tentative lick at the head before swallowing it down. I groaned as Lance drooled around me, taking more and more of my length each time he’d bob his head up and down. Lance was messy, slurping and sucking hard, a mix of pre and saliva dribbling down his chin. I carded a hand into his hair, watching the way his lips spread eagerly against me.

“So gorgeous like this,” I told him, “You ready for me?”

Lance popped off immediately, my cock resting against his cheek as he looked back up at me, “ _Yes,_ ” he said, turning his head to lick a lazy stripe up to my head, his lipstick finally smeared.

I put a hand on his shoulder and tossed him back against the bed roughly. He landed with a bounce, expression hazy as he watched me climb on top of him. He spread his legs willingly, bringing his hands to loop around my shoulders. I rubbed the head of my cock across his entrance a few times, getting lost in the sound of Lance’s little gasps.

“How much do you want it?” I asked.

Lance was gone, biting deep into his own lip as he looked up at me with glassy eyes. “So bad, so bad, Keith, please, I’m begging you, you gotta-”

Finally, _finally_ , I sunk myself into him.

“Holy shit, _fuck me_ ,” Lance said, his eyes rolling back. “You’re huge.”

I didn’t think I could get any harder than that, but then Lance gasped as I twitched inside him. He managed a lazy smirk as I let him adjust. “Hah… seems like I’m not the o-only one who likes dirty talk, huh?”

In answer, I pulled out an inch or so and thrust back in sharply, effectively removing the smirk from his lips and replacing it with a blissed out smile and a moan. Lance’s body moved in waves, hips rising and falling with each slide in and out of him fluidly.

I pulled his legs up to my shoulders and leaned forward, bending Lance in half as I tried to find the right angle. He was so _flexible_ , knees wrapping around my shoulders and drawing me in closer. Desperate, needy noises spilled from his lips. I pressed my hips up, smirking down at him.

“ _Fuuuuck,_ Keith! There! _”_ Lance whimpered, back arching.

I sped up, feeling my control over my own body slip as I chased after my own pleasure, fucking into Lance’s prostate and jerking him off at the same time. Lance slipped up the bed, hands pressed against the wall to keep himself planted, using it as leverage to push himself further around my cock every time our hips met. His nails, a perfect glittery blue, scraped against the glossy white paint.

“Fuck! Keith, Nnnh! _Harder,_ c’moooon-!”

I leaned down to mouth at Lance’s neck, sucking a kiss mark there. Lance tilted his head to the side with a moan as I left more, a garden of red and purple bruises popping up against his otherwise flawless skin. I slammed into him harder, faster, each time pulling another loud noise from the boy below me.

“Taking me so well, Lance,” I told him, “So good for me.”

Lance preened at the praise, his breaths becoming more and more uneven as his thighs shook against my sides. He wrapped his hands around my back, pulling me down to kiss him. Heat pooled deep between my legs at the sight of Lance so incoherent, bent in half, wrecked with tears beginning to pool in the corners of his eyes.

“You close?” I asked, nibbling at his earlobe and angling his hips so I slid in even deeper.

Lance shuddered, “S-shit, yeah, I’m so- I- fuck!” he stammered, “Aaah… I want…”

Smirking, I pulled at the hair at the nape of his neck, making his head fall back and his back bow.

“Come on, Lance, baby, do it,” I told him, speeding up, ramming into him as his moans grew louder. Each thrust hit him right where he needed it, and I watched him unravel and writhe on the mattress with each one, long arms coming to grasp at the back of my neck.

“Come on, sweetheart. I want to watch you lose it, need to see you come on my cock.”

Lance let out a hoarse scream, scratching his nails deep into my back. He bit into my neck as he clenched down on me, every in inch of him showing just how close he was. My thrusts became erratic, and in my ear Lance was screaming an almost incoherent mess of, _more, please, more, more-_

“C’mon Lance. Now. _Now._ C’mon _, come for me, baby_.”

Lance screamed as he came, toes curling and every inch of him trembling. I followed behind not to long after as he tightened up on me just right.

 

Before long, I pulled out gently, laying down beside Lance and holding him close.

“So perfect,” I told him, kissing his eyelids and forehead and nose and cheeks as he came down. His breath evened out after a minute or so. “Holy shit,” he finally said quietly, curled up against my chest. “I don’t think I… I mean, I’m not a virgin by any means, but I uh- _Nnn_ _fuck_ …” he trailed off.

I chuckled, “That good?” I asked.

“The _best_ ,” he groaned, his tone far more certain and earnest than I was prepared for. I blinked, clearing my throat. “Uh, cool. That’s… that’s cool.”

 

The next time I came into the shop, my coffee read, “Mr. Fahrenheit”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only took me like twelve years to post the smut chapter, but you still got it!  
> Sorry for the unplanned hiatus, I had to unexpectedly move both of my grandmothers and finish out the semester on short notice, but from here on it should be more smooth sailing!  
> Thanks for your patience <3

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to send me some love <3 I tend to write more often when I know people are hyped about the story.  
> I also L I V E for fan feedback, because inserting your headcanons into the story is one of my favorite things to do.


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